A blue Stop Error in Windows 7
A Blue Screen in Windows 10
The Blue Screen of Death (BSoD), Blue screen error, Blue Screen, fatal error, or bugcheck, and officially known as a Stop error,[1][2] is a critical error screen displayed by the Microsoft Windows operating system in the event of a fatal system error. It indicates a system crash, in which the operating system has reached a critical condition where it can no longer operate safely. Possible issues include hardware failure, an issue with or without a device driver, or unexpected termination of a crucial process or thread.
Appearance and name[]
Crashing Windows 3.1 to Windows 11!
Most stop errors, which are blue screens with white text, are known by their affectionate nickname blue screens or Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). The original stop errors were black, and red stop errors were visible in early builds of Windows Vista after a bootloader error. Stop errors are also referred to as "bug checks" in the Windows Software development kit and Driver development kit documentation.
The color blue was chosen because there was a version of Windows NT for the DEC Alpha platform and there the console colors could not be changed in an easy way. For consistency reasons blue became the color for Stop errors on all platforms (alpha/i386/mips/ppc).
By default, the display is white lettering on a blue (0x01, #0000AA) background, with information about current memory values and register values. For visually impaired users, Microsoft has added a utility that allows the user to change a setting in SYSTEM.INI that controls the colors that the BSOD code uses to any of the 16 EGA colors.
Windows 95, 98 and Me use 80x25 text mode. The Windows NT BSOD uses 80x50 text mode. The screen resolution is 720x400. The XP BSOD uses the Lucida Console font while the Vista BSOD uses the Consolas font.
Occurrences and actions[]
In Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista, a stop error occurs when the kernel or a driver running in kernel mode encounters an error from which it cannot recover. This is usually caused by an illegal operation being performed. The only safe action the operating system can take in this situation is to restart the computer. As a result, data may be lost, as users are not given an opportunity to save data that has not yet been saved to the hard drive.
A BSOD can also be caused by a critical boot loader error, where the operating system is unable to access the boot partition due to incorrect storage drivers or similar problems. The error code in this situation is STOP 0x0000007B (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE). In such cases, there is no memory dump saved. Since the system is unable to boot from the hard drive in this situation, correction of the problem often requires booting from the Microsoft Windows CD. After booting to the CD, it may be possible to correct the problem by performing a repair install or by using the Recovery Console (with CHKDSK).
Embedded systems running Microsoft Windows NT Embedded and Windows XP Embedded have also been known to Bluescreen. These can include are Internet payphones, ATMs and information displays.
On an unpatched Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 systems, it is possible for a BSOD to occur as a result of various internet attacks, like WinNuke. An easy way to make BSOD to Occur is to terminate Csrss.exe.
A BSOD can also be caused when you replace files in Resource Hacker with Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 during the startup. This only applies to Windows Vista and Windows 7.
Debugging[]
Each BSOD usually displays a message such as FILE_SYSTEM as well as a number like 0x00000022. The usual parameters displayed for the BSOD are the following:
number of error (parameter, parameter, parameter, parameter) name of error
By default, Windows will create a memory dump file when a blue screen error occurs. Depending on the OS version, there may be several formats this can be saved in, ranging from a 64 KB "mini dump" to a "complete dump" which is effectively a copy of the entire contents of physical RAM. The resulting memory dump file may be debugged later, using a kernel debugger. A debugger is necessary to obtain a stack trace, and may be required to ascertain the true cause of the problem; as the information onscreen is limited and thus possibly misleading, it may hide the true source of the error.
Microsoft Windows can also be configured to send live debugging information to a kernel debugger running on a separate computer. (Windows XP also allows for kernel debugging from the machine that is running the OS.) If a blue screen error is encountered while a live kernel debugger is attached to the system, Windows will halt execution and cause the debugger to "break in", rather than displaying the BSOD. The debugger can then be used to examine the contents of memory and determine the source of the problem.
The Windows debugger is available as a free download from Microsoft.
Windows includes a feature that can be used to cause a blue screen manually. To enable it, the user must add a value to the Windows registry. After that, a BSOD will appear when the user presses the SCROLL LOCK key twice while holding the right CTRL key. This feature is primarily useful for obtaining a memory dump of the computer while it is in a given state. As such, it is generally used to aid in troubleshooting system hangs.
In Windows XP, a stop error is configured by default to reboot immediately after performing the 64kb minidump. For this reason, the blue stop error screen is only flashed up briefly before the automatic reboot, and this can easily be missed by a user.
History[]
A blue screen in Windows 98
The blue screen error started in Windows 1.0, where it seemed to be random nonsense. This was because Windows had no memory protection, and any faulty program could easily overwrite memory, especially the video memory.
In 1993, the blue screen actually gave out error messages, starting with Windows 3.1.
In 2001, the BSOD in Windows XP began to put the following sentence first:
A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.
Starting with Windows Server 2012, the BSOD had a slightly brighter background and it showed no coding problems.
A black screen in Windows 11 with a troubleshooting QR code.
Windows 11[]
In 2021, Windows 11 switched the color of the error screen from blue to black. It also provides a QR code referred to as a stopcode to assist in troubleshooting.[3] However, the color of the screen was soon switched back to a darker shade of blue in the update to build 22000.348 and later.[4][5]
References[]
- ↑ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/blue-screen-data
- ↑ https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/ask-the-performance-team/understanding-bugchecks/ba-p/372609
- ↑ The Blue Screen of Death in Windows 11 is going black by I. Bonifacic, Engadget. 2021-07-02.
- ↑ Windows 11’s Black Screen of Death is changing back to blue by Tom Warren, The Verge. 2021-11-16.
- ↑ Windows 11 Update Makes BSOD Blue Again and Fixes Major File Explorer Bugs by Aaron Klotz, Tom's Hardware. 2021-11-23.
External links[]
- Troubleshoot blue screen errors at Microsoft Support
- Resolving stop (blue screen) errors in Windows 7
- Fix: BSOD (Bluescreen of Death) Errors Windows 10 by Lester at Microsoft Community (2018-09-04)
- Advanced troubleshooting for Stop error or blue screen error issue at Microsoft Docs (2021-04-13)
- Blue screen of death at Wikipedia