ATM machine had a windows crash and took my money.

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The atm uses a closed network. As for the run time the guy who loads the cash iam guessing reboots it too. And the inteface has very few ways into the system so again iam guessing it is more secure than you think.

That's the whole point of atomic transactional RDBMS's.

With locking and write-ahead logging, you can be sure that your database remains in a consistent state at all times. It is trickier when database transactions correspond to real world events because something can go wrong before or after you commit the transaction, meaning either you or the bank could wind up losing money depending on how the system was designed. But you can take this account when designing the system. By inteleaving database transactions and the code the small steps necessary to do something like dispense cash, you can make sure that you always know approximately when something went wrong, and recover from almost all crashes. If the atm had the capability of counting the money it contained, then you could be 100% perfect. Upon recovering from a crash, you simply dispense any money contained in the atm above the guaranteed consistent state in the database.

By the way, you might contact the bank or store where the ATM was located. Some ATMs are programmed to suck the cash back in (to a special container) after something goes wrong. If you are lucky then you may be able to recover your money.

yes scan or drafts or check 21

They probably subcontracted out the coding, anyway...they're interested in a minimum cost, mainly security, etc. Actually, I though MS gave up support on XP a year ago...though they've changed that story more than once.