[jraph]

A Windows update restarted a critical server automatically. A core service is blocked from starting by a Candy Crush ad installed by the update. The Crandy Crush ad is somehow expecting a Copilot key to be pressed on the keyboard to let the system keep going.

MS engineers are waiting for an online purchase of a new $400 keyboard with the Copilot key to complete and planning to run to the data center to plug the keyboard.

However, the Bing outage is preventing the purchase to go through, because the payment somehow relies on Bing suggestions to load for obscure reasons.

[exikyut]

Very very technically, if RDP is enabled and working, this could be fixed by rdesktop-ing to the machine from a Linux box and using xdotool to experiment with typing raw keyboard scancodes through the RDP session in the hope you figure out the encoding of the Copilot key.

[jraph]

Neat answer :-)

I also appreciate that you prevented me from countering using a guard like "if RDP is enabled and working", and that a follow up answer actually provides the missing piece xD.

[r2_pilot]

The Copilot key is actually Left-Shift + Windows key + F23

[adamomada]

And you can remap it but can’t use it as a modifier key https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/windows-copilo...

[ornornor]

MS knows better than to run windows on their servers. They’ve famously been running Linux on their public web facing stuff for years, including when they were publicly discrediting Linux (because IIS and MS server were so good they couldn’t run their web services reliably and securely).

[Kerbonut]

No way Microsoft could be this inept… could they?

[rchaud]

Update: the payment gateway is Stripe, which is not processing any transactions associated with the MS account. A developer has posted the issue to HN in the hope that a Stripe employee will see it and escalate the issue. /s

[manuelmoreale]

I love that you had to include the /s because someone might actually believe that is indeed the case. What a bizarre world we live in.

[adamomada]

Poe’s Law is pretty old by now

[manuelmoreale]

I get that but still. I found it amusing.