How to deal with Windows BSoD - Blue Screen of Death

What is BSoD

BSoD refers to Blue Screen of Death (also known as stop error screen or bug check screen or blue screen of doom). It is usually caused by unsuspected software errors in device drivers, incompatible DLL driver files or bugs in the kernel of the operating system. It can also be caused by physical hardware faults such as faulty RAM, overheating of components or over-clocking (running a hardware device beyond its specification limits).

The information about the memory when the system crashed is saved in a file called as ‘mini dump’ or the ‘dump file’. It is usually stored at ‘C:\Windows\Minidump’ folder. This dump file can be used to analyze the cause of the blue dump.

Ways to deal with blue dump

      1. Open up your CPU and remove the RAM stick(s) from their slot(s). Wipe them off with a clean cloth or by an eraser (softly) and put them back in the slots. You can also try exchanging the positions of the RAM sticks provided you have more than 2 RAM sticks.

      2. Download and install WhoCrashed (a free system utility to find the drivers responsible for crashing your computer) from http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed. This utility requires the Windows Debugging Package (WinDbg) from Microsoft. This is available for download while installing WhoCrashed or can be separately downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/installx86.mspx. Once WhoCrashed is successfully installed, start the tool, click on analyze and it would display the information about the driver which caused the system crash. To resolve the problem, you can just uninstall that driver if not required, or re-install the updated driver for the same.

      3. Another way to analyze the cause of blue dump is to look at the Windows Event Logs. Right click on Computer in the Start menu, select Manage. In the Computer Management window select Event Viewer. Go to Windows Logs à System. And check for Error type of events marked with red exclamation. The Details tab displays the detailed information of the error.

      4. You can try installing the ‘fixshell.exe’ from http://info.prevx.com/download.asp?GRAB=BLACKSCREENFIX

      5. You can download and install the hotfix directly from Microsoft support site at http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=979444&kbln=en-us

      6. Just install this hotfix and forget about anything else - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979444/en-us

      PS: These ways have been consolidated through various search results and are intended only for informational purpose and home use. These methods should be tried at your own risks.

CLSIDs, Windows GodMode and Lock Utility

Today I am going to write something about Class IDs popularly known as GUIDs. A Class ID (CLSID) is a 128 bit number that represents a unique id for an application or component. Typically they are displayed like this "{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}". They are used to uniquely identify a given program. GUIDGEN.EXE (or UUIDGEN.EXE) is the utility provided by Microsoft to generate CLSID for a given application.

Now comes the interesting part. You can play with these GUIDs or CLSIDs when they come from system tools. Meaning, there are CLSIDs for all system tools like 'My Computer', 'Control Panel', 'Administrative Tools' etc. Below is the list of some of the CLSIDs:

Administrative Tools            {D20EA4E1-3957-11d2-A40B-0C5020524153}
Connections                          {241D7C96-F8BF-4F85-B01F-E2B043341A4B}
Computer                              {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
Documents                            {450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}
History                                    {ff393560-c2a7-11cf-bff4-444553540000}
Network Places                     {208d2c60-3aea-1069-a2d7-08002b30309d}
Printers and Faxes                 {2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
Programs Folder                    {7be9d83c-a729-4d97-b5a7-1b7313c39e0a}
Recycle Bin                             {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
WEI                                          {78F3955E-3B90-4184-BD14-5397C15F1EFC}

GodMode                              {ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Lock                                        {2559a1f2-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}

WEI stands for Windows Experience Index.

Create a folder 'Softwares' and rename it to 'Softwares. {ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}'. The properties of the folder are changed according to the CLSID appended to it. That is if you rename the folder 'Softwares' to 'Softwares. {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}' the folder is changed to My Computer. Pretty interesting, isn't it?

Now, the most exhilarating part of the whole name game is the GodMode and Lock class IDs. Create a folder named 'GodMode' and rename it to 'GodMode. {ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}'. The icon of the folder changes to something like that of control panel. Now open this folder, it contains almost every system tool from defragmenting a drive to creating a partition to configuring services and so on. This is called as GodMode feature of Windows 7 because all the system utilities are captured under one roof.

Another interesting thing is the Lock CLSID. Create a folder called 'Movies' and rename it to 'Movies. {2559a1f2-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}'. A lock icon appears on the folder and you cannot open the folder. This can be used to protect important files and folders from other users.

All the CLSIDs are stored in System Registry at the location 'HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID'

PS: The information in this post has been taken from various sites through Google and then consolidated into an easy-to-understand blog-post.