One of the greatest adversaries of Microsoft Windows has been Janet Jackson… to be more precise, it’s her song Rhythm Nation that the operating system was tired of.
In 2005, it was discovered that Jackson’s song could crash a particular computer because it matched the natural resonant frequency of its hard drive. The manufacturer behind the model solved the issue by introducing an audio filter to Windows XP that dampened the offending frequency. The issue attracted an entry in the NIST National Vulnerability Database, which says it affected 5,400rpm hard drives for certain machines “in approximately 2005 and later”.
Programmer Raymond Chen has posted on the Microsoft Dev Blog that the filter was installed “at least until Windows 7”, which was released in 2009.
Microsoft implemented a directive that required Audio Processing Objects (APO) to be disabled by the user on command. If you go to Windows’ classic Sound settings Control Panel app, open the properties of your default speaker, click on the Advanced tab, and uncheck Enable audio enhancements, all filters, including the one potentially protecting your PC from Janet Jackson’s hit, will be deactivated.
If you are wondering whether the rule is still in place, Chen said: “All I know is that it was there in the Windows 7 era. I don’t know if it’s still there.”
Since the industry has moved on from spinning-disk hard drives, it appears safe to listen to Rhythm Nation these days.