Blue screen of death Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The Blue Screen of Death, also abbreviated as BSoD, refers to the screen displayed by Microsoft's Windows operating system when it cannot (or is in danger of being unable to) recover from a system error. There are two Windows error screens that are both referred to as the blue screen of death, with one being significantly more serious than the other.A BSoD is also a "Stop Error", as known in the Windows XP manuals. The blue screen of death in one form or another has been present in all Windows operating systems since Windows version 2.0.
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2 Display 3 Examples 4 Blue screens in the IT industry 5 Homage to the Blue Screen of Death 6 See also 7 External links 8 Reference |
The "Stop" message contains the error code and its symbolic name (ex: 0x0000001E, KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED) along with four error-dependent values in parentheses. It displays the address where the problem occurred, along with the driver in question. Windows can be set up to send debugging information through a COM port to a separate kernel debugger. The debugger is necessary to perform a stack trace, as it would be impractical to copy the information off the screen, and it is not saved to disk. Also, the point at which the code crashed can be completely different from where the error originated, and thus can mislead users into believing it is a hardware error or similar.1
Under Windows NT and 2000, the second and third sections of the screen contain information on all loaded drivers and a stack dump, respectively. The driver information is in three columns; the first lists the base address of the driver, the second lists the driver's creation date (as a Unix timestamp), and the third lists the name of the driver.
In 2003, the people at TweakXP.com found a "feature", which can be used to manually cause a blue screen. To enable it, the user needs to add a value to the Windows registry. After that, a BSoD will appear each time the user presses the Scroll Lock key, while holding the right Ctrl. [1]
The most common reason for BSoD'ing is problems with incompatible versions of DLLss. This cause is sometimes referred to as DLL hell. Windows loads these DLLs into memory when they are needed by application programs; if versions are changed, the next time an application loads the DLL it may be different from what the application expects. These incompatibilities increase over time as more new software is installed, and is one of the main reasons why a freshly-installed copy of Windows is more stable than an "old" one.
In Windows 95 and 98, a BSoD occurs when the system attempts to access the file
"c:\\con\\con". This is often inserted on websites to crash user's machines. Microsoft has released a patch at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms00-017.mspx.
The BSOD can appear if a user ejects a floppy disk while it is being read on 9x/ME.
This type of blue screen is no longer seen in Windows NT, 2000, and XP. In the case of these less serious software errors, the program may still crash, but it will not take down the entire operating system with it due to better memory management and decreased legacy support. In these systems, the "true" BSoD is seen only in cases where the entire operating system crashes.
By default, the display is white (CGA color 0x0F; HTML color #FFFFFF) lettering on a blue (EGA color 0x01; HTML color #0000AA) background, with information about current memory values and register values. Demonstrating a sense of humor, Microsoft has added a utility that allows the user to change a setting in
Windows 95, 98 and Me use 80x25 text mode. The font is similar to Fixedsys. The Windows NT BSoD uses 80x50 text mode. The screen resolution is 720x400. The XP BSoD uses font Lucida Console.
Types of blue screens
Windows XP/2000/NT
In Windows NT, 2000, and XP, a blue screen of death ("Stop" error) occurs when the kernel encounters an error from which it can not recover. This is usually caused by a driver that throws an unhandled exception or performs an illegal operation. The only action the user can take in this situation is to restart the computer, which results in the possible corruption or loss of data because Windows has not been properly shut down.Windows Me/9x
The less serious (but more common) blue screen of death occurs in Microsoft's home desktop operating systems Windows 95, 98, and Me. In these operating systems, the BSoD is the main way for VxDs to report errors to the user. It is internally referred to by the name of "_VWIN32_FaultPopup". A Windows 9x/Me BSoD gives the user the option to either restart or continue. However, VxDs do not display BSoDs frivolously—they usually indicate a problem which cannot be fixed without restarting the computer, and hence after a BSoD is displayed the system is usually unstable or unresponsive.Display
system.ini that controls the colors that the BSoD code uses to any of the 16 CGA colors.Examples
Windows XP
The following is a re-creation of the Windows XP BSoD, although they somewhat vary:
A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.PFN_LIST_CORRUPT
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Windows NT4/2000
The Windows NT4/2000 BSoD looks like this:
*** STOP: 0x0000000A (0x00000000, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 8038c510) IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL*** Address 8038c510 has base at 8038c000 - Ntfs.sys |
Windows 95/98/Me
The following is a re-creation of a Windows 95/98/Me BSoD:
A fatal exception 0E has occurred at 0157:BF7FF831. The current application will be terminated. |
System administrators often use "to bluescreen" or "to BSoD" as a verb, as in: "The server just BSoD'd" or "Windows 2000 doesn't bluescreen as much as NT 4 did." (This usage is unrelated to color key special effects in film, also called bluescreen.)
Embedded systems running Microsoft Windows have also been known to Bluescreen. Typical examples are Internet payphones, automatic teller machines and information displays.
Some BSoDs have been caused by WinNuke, which was a very popular way for script kiddies to attack other people and disconnect computers from their internet connections and/or BSoD the computer. The vulnerability WinNuke exploits exists only in Windows 95 however, although Microsoft has discontinued support for the operating system. BSoDs unrelated to WinNuke, however, are not prevented by this patch.
The Linux operating system, which is generally viewed as being more stable than the Microsoft operating systems, rarely encounters conditions which could cause such a terminal error. However, many previous Windows users have retained a fondness for the Windows Blue Screen of Death so they have attempted to bring this to Linux by creating a screensaver module which mimics all forms of the Windows Blue Screen of Death. This is included in many popular Linux distributions.
Microsoft has also included a reference to the BSoD as an easter egg in the Internet Explorer browser. Typing "about:mozilla" in the address bar will result in a blank blue page being displayed. The command is the standard way to bring up yet another easter egg on the Netscape family of browsers.
Blue screens in the IT industry
Homage to the Blue Screen of Death
See also
External links