Get Windows To Give You a Blue Screen of Death on Demand

Why on the earth would anybody want to get a blue screen of death on demand? Basically this is useful for windows kernel debugging. Other then that it could be a nice addition to the tech prankster’s toolbox.

The following method is not just a trick, it will produce a genuine BSOD and memory dump.

Get Blue Screen of Death on Windows

To see the BSOD, first disable your computer’s automatic restart settings on critical error, otherwise the computer will be restarted just after BSOD and you won’t be able to see it. To disable the automatic restart settings right click on My Computer and click on Properties tab, then Advanced tab, then click the settings button under the “startup and recovery” heading, and uncheck “Automatically restart”.

Once you have disabled the auto-restart on error, follow these steps to see a BSOD,

1. Open Regedit, Start > Run > regedit.
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Services > i8042prt > Parameters, using the left pane on the registry editor.
3. When you’ll select the parameters folder in the registry editor, a number of keys will be visible in the right pane. Look for the CrashOnCtrlScroll key.
   • If you find the CrashOnCtrlScroll key on the right pane, double click on the key and set its value to 1.
   • If you can’t find the CrashOnCtrlScroll key on the right pane, then right click anywhere on the right pane and create new>dword key with the name CrashOnCtrlScroll and set its value to one.
4. Restart your computer.
5. Now you are ready to get BSOD on demand. Hold ctrl and press Scroll Lock two times, lo and behold, here is a BSOD.

Remove BSOD on Demand Settings

To remove the BSOD on demand settings, just navigate to the folder
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesi8042prtParameters, in the resistry editor and delete the CrashOnCtrlScroll key.

More BSOD Fun

On windows 98, you can even change the color of the BSOD (I wonder how can you call it BSOD if it is not even blue, so I will refer it as SOD, that is, Screen of Death.). To do this open C:WINDOWSsystem.ini in notepad and find [386enh], under this heading look for the following two settings,

MessageBackColor=8
MessageTextColor=9

If you can’t find the above two settings than just add them as they are written above.

Now to change the color of BSOD, use the following values in the above properties

0 = black,
1 = blue,
2 = green,
3 = cyan,
4 = red,
5 = magenta,
6 = yellow/brown,
7 = white,
8 = gray,
9 = bright blue,
A = bright green,
B = bright cyan,
C = bright red,
D = bright magenta,
E = bright yellow,
F = bright white

(If you are thinking, what are these letters A,B,C etc. after 9, then you you probably need to learn more about hexadecimal number system).

Note: This is not tested on Windows 7, so try at your own risk.