BSYOW: Blue screen your own Windows installation in 3 simple keystrokes

Filed under: Fun, Windows

BSYOW: Blue screen your own Windows installation in 3 simple keystrokes

by Simon Kerbel Dec 27th 2007

The Windows blue screen of death is an enigmatic thing; unavoidable and menacing, it knows no master, rising unbidden to threaten young and old alike. The blue screen is one of those universal frustrations; like traffic, or multiple waiting rooms at the doctor's office, or finding food between your teeth minutes after an important meeting or rendezvous.

It would be something approximating madness to suggest a way to voluntarily kill your Windows machine with the fabled blue screen of death. It would be sheer madness to suggest why you might want to do so.

Well, we're here to do both.

Thanks to a bit of keyboard foolery, you can create your own Windows BSOD in 3 simple keystrokes. It turns out this function was built into Windows for testing purposes, so it's not a bug, and it won't have any side effects (beside that Pavlovian grimace on your face as the blue screen appears). If there's any doubt about that, check out the Microsoft KB article on the subject (because we all know the MS KB articles are the end of the debate).

To enable this "feature," open up regedit (if you don't know what that is, read no further!) and browse down to one of the below keys, which will differ according to keyboard type:

USB:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\kbdhid\Parameters

PS/2 Keyboard:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters

Right-click on the right-hand pane of the Registry Editor and add a new DWORD key named CrashOnCtrlScroll, giving it a value of 1.

Reboot your computer; now you are ready to bring forth the blue screen of death by using the following keyboard shortcut:

Hold down Right Ctrl and hit Scroll Lock twice

And the beast will rise. If you wish to remove this behavior, simply delete the registry key and restart your computer.

As to why you would want the ability to trigger said blue screen? I'll let you be creative in the comments, but I can think of a few: it can get you out of work (how can you expect to get anything done with a freak recurring blue screen of death?), scare a friend by triggering it on their own computer...the possibilities are well nigh endless.

Ah, productivity...

[Via the How-To Geek]

Tags: blue screen of death, BlueScreenOfDeath, fun, keyboard command, KeyboardCommand, keystroke, regedit, registry, windows

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

PS_4 said 5:38PM on 12-27-2007

If only I could edit my school computers' registry...

Rob said 6:53PM on 12-27-2007

So...

Is there a way to safely exit this so called "feature"?

Aalaap said 2:48AM on 12-28-2007

Yes and no. No, you can't "exit" this - you have to reboot. But yes, it's safe.

Provided you didn't have any unsaved documents open while you tried this.

Rob said 6:56PM on 12-27-2007

So,...

Is there a way to safely exit this "feature"?

Conda said 7:15PM on 12-27-2007

you exit by restarting. this is causing a very literal bluescreeen, memory dump and all. it is very useful for programmers, if they have a program run out of control and they cant get a report some other way (like driver programming for example) they just do this, dump the memory, and debug it when they reboot.

Mark said 10:43PM on 12-27-2007

So in other words make sure you save all your work and close everything properly before trying this. :)

Aalaap said 2:43AM on 12-28-2007

I bet you can't do THAT with a Mac or Linux! HA!

bma said 7:23AM on 1-22-2008

Yes, you can. Bind a key to "xscreensaver-command --lock", then configure your screensaver to be the BSOD saver.

Works every time. :)

y2kss66 said 10:40PM on 12-29-2007

our schools computer administrators are stupid the block access to the run command but not the windows section on the c: drive so i can still edit the registry lol

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