Dylan Smith wrote:
Like car crashes, most Windows crashes are caused by bad drivers.

The same is true of all operating systems; I once had a Sun Solaris system
crash because the tape driver had a bug.

It's been a while since I worked on any RTOS, but I seem to (probably
incorrectly) recall that applications running on VxWorks (the OS used on
the Mars Explorer, among other spacecraft) generally have full run of the
memory. That is, there is no distinction between the app and the OS as far
as access privileges to memory or I/O.

And I'll admit it eventually doesn't matter how reliable the OS is once it
passes a certain reasonable level, since the application(s) are always
going to be less reliable. If your app crashes, you may not get a "blue
screen" but the end result for the pilot is the same: they have to restart
the app somehow, and a cold restart is generally the easiest. (Though if
the OS is running okay it can tell when the app dies and do a warm restart
on the pilot's behalf.)