As part of a multi-operating system challenge (testing computer integrity), I need to find the fastest way to reproduce a genuine Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) on a Windows machine. Any version that is XP or later will work.
As Shinrai puts it:
So basically you're trying to BSOD a machine as fast as humanly
possible, but only once, and you can't touch the machine before the
clock starts?
Yep, that's exactly what I'm trying to do.
I'm wondering if there are simple commands or actions that will cause Windows to go haywire and spit out a blue screen. Any pointers would be very helpful.
Constraints:
- Can't write a script/program
- Can't mess with hardware
- Must be able to do it WITHIN windows
- Can't be fake
I need to be able to boot cleanly into Windows, then I must reproduce a BSOD on the fly. So hardware and required-boot solutions are good but they don't conform to these rules.
CONCLUSIONS
I arrived at the competiton ready to implement Shinrai's method of BSOD. Turns out there were no specific rules about turning your computer on and off, only that you can't mess with the hardware. I checked my keyboard — it was a USB one, so I knew which key to edit. We were told to start and I quickly found and edited the key and rebooted. Luckily these were bare bones computers and not a lot of services had to be started – resulting in a fairly quick reboot. Looking around, I saw people screwing around with the registry but no one else was restarting their computer. I did the keyboard combination and BOOM windows spewed a beautiful BSOD (something the OS is actually good for).
I ended up winning and I only had one thing to say: "I'm happy to be going home to my linux box".
Thanks to Shinrai for the winning solution!
Best Answer
There is in fact a developer tool built into most versions of Windows to generate a BSOD on command. Here's how you cause it in Windows 7 on either a USB or PS/2 keyboard (I believe it is the same for XP/Vista on USB even though this article doesn't say so, I may be mistaken though):