BSOD ScreenSaver from Microsoft (SysInternals)

Filed under: Developer, Fun, Windows, Microsoft, Freeware

BSOD ScreenSaver from Microsoft (SysInternals)

by Jason Clarke Nov 11th 2006

This, to me, is a breath of fresh air. Microsoft has a freely available screensaver that mimics the much maligned Blue Screen of Death error screen that Windows gives when it crashes in a big bad way. While other prank screensavers have been made that are similar, this one is unique in that all of the identifiable text on the screen is pulled from the system's actual values - so the BSOD looks as legitimate as it possibly can. It even gives the option in the screensaver's configuration to fake disk activity, so that it appears as if a real dump is happening.

It's no surprise to learn that this download originated with SysInternals, a company that made quite the name for itself developing tools to get to the bottom of what is actually going on inside Windows. Microsoft recognized their value, and snatched them up - so the brand is now known as Windows SysInternals.

Obviously, we can't condone this, but for all sorts of fun you could install this screensaver on a friend's machine, then watch when they become ever more frustrated that their machine keeps "crashing". Am I mean for thinking that's funny? I guess I am.

Tags: blue screen of death, BlueScreenOfDeath, bsod, bsod prank, bsod screensaver, BsodPrank, BsodScreensaver, free screensaver, FreeScreensaver, microsoft screensaver, MicrosoftScreensaver, screensaver

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Buggy said 2:58PM on 11-11-2006

The screensaver was cute, but it left my system set to 640x480 resolution. What a pain -- having to reset the video resolution each time the screen saver quits.

Come on guys... did you test this?

Jason Clarke said 2:59PM on 11-11-2006

I sure did - and it worked fine on my machine, even with two monitors. It simply blanked my second monitor, and set my first one to 640x480 while the screensaver was running, then everything went back to normal when I exited it.

Jim said 11:01AM on 11-12-2006

Wow! It's 1997 all over again!

cryton said 11:03AM on 11-12-2006

This is actually an old one. We used to use this at offices all over the place during the contractor boom in the late 90's.

The cool thing that made this seem legit was the ability to list the drivers of the system it was used on. It really came in handy for the guys you just couldn't stand!! :)

Kat said 11:03AM on 11-12-2006

What's up with the multi-colored links? And the first 2 don't work.

Andr� Brock said 11:03AM on 11-12-2006

just out of curiousity - is there a kernel panic screensaver for Mac OS X? i'd LOVE to have one of those with password protection...

Buggy said 11:03AM on 11-12-2006

Hmmm, it's working fine now, but previously (when launching the .scr directly) it changed my resolution. Maybe my NVIDIA drivers just freaked out? OK, I'll give it another chance. :-)

Buggy (not) said 11:03AM on 11-12-2006

This is actually an extremely realistic screen saver -- I love the way they threw in the XP boot-up screen. It almost fooled me! Nicely done! (And no more resolution problems since.) Cool!

Jason Clarke said 11:09AM on 11-12-2006

Kat - thanks for pointing out those weird non-links. It appears that was some kind of funky result of Firefox's spell-check formatting (red underlines), if you can believe it. All I did to fix it was go in and re-type the linked words. Weird.

Noam said 3:45PM on 11-12-2006

Too bad they don't have ones for higher resolutions.
Nice anyways.

Johnnyg0 said 3:51PM on 11-12-2006

Buggy: even better, if you run if off Windows 2000 it shows you the Windows 2000 startup screen. It seems to know pretty much on the system for a screensaver :)

Glenn said 11:19AM on 11-13-2006

The goofiest part about this? McAfee thinks this is a virus. Lovely.

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