Fun Microsoft Windows Trick: BSOD by Obscure Filename

For people who are using Windows 95 or 98 (but not NT), attempting to open the (nonexistant) file c:\nul\nul will result in a BSOD and a required hard reset. An easy way to test this is to go to the start menu, go to run, and then just type in:
    c:\nul\nul
Or, you can go to your browser navigation bar and type in:
    file:///c:/nul/nul
What results is a series of BSODs that leave your computer unusable. The first is a "A fatal exception 0E has occurred at ___ in VXD VFAT(1)" (lovely, eh?). After that, you get more BSODs, followed by a "Explorer caused a general protection fault in module KRNL386.EXE". More BSODs, followed by a "Kernel32 caused a general protection fault in module KRNL386.EXE". It's usually at this point that moving the mouse starts making your computer speaker click, and you no longer can do anything useful with your computer without resetting it.

If you are feeling somewhat malicious, this can be a very quick way to crash lots of computers that you have physical access to really quickly. This is particularily useful in malls with Internet kiosks and in stores like Best Buy that have all sorts of computers lined up that you can "try out". I'm not necessarily suggesting that you do this, because it would be incredibly mean to the poor people who are working there and have to reboot everything, but it's just a mischevious suggestion. *blush*

Although not many people know this, before Slashdot disallowed the use of file:// links, as an alternate to http://goatse.cx, some trolls would link to file:///c:/nul/nul. It's also fun to put that in your .sig file, because some HTML-esque mail clients will show it as a link, and allow users to click on it.

I'm sure there's some sort of arcane reason for why this happens or why it was necessary at some point during the Microsoft Development Process, but I just find it incredibly amusing.