Causing a BSOD in C/C++?

>> It is used for testing purposes.

Yes, to test a very important feature ! lol ... god forbid the BSOD wouldn't work ;)

>> Yes, to test a very important feature
Ok, for example... you want to test that your uber-important and critical program can survive a BSOD (or a Stop Error to give it the correct name) and recover properly, but how? Answer, generate a BSOD in a controlled way. I suppose you could just pull the plug but I'm not sure that would be the same test, since a stop error has other side effects that just pulling the plug doesn't and vice versa.

Full documentation on the feature can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/244139

>> god forbid the BSOD wouldn't work ;)
I wonder, is there an equivalent way to make a Linux kernel panic (other than should 'boo' really loudly at it)? I can't say I've ever come across one, I'm sure there must be thought.

There's no recovering from a BSOD, is there ? It's basically the OS saying : "I give up - this is too much for me".

>> There's no recovering from a BSOD, is there ? It's basically the OS saying : "I give up - this is too much for me".
The OS is stopped, but as part of that it performs certain things such as perform a memory dump.

Right, but what I was getting at is : why would you want to leave it in the finished product ... Why would you give your users the option to trigger a BSOD with a few key presses ?

Which actually makes me curious ... because apparently brandonhsiao90 does want to do it ... Could you satisfy my curiosity, brandonhsiao90 ?

that's not what I meant. I meant you generate the stop error from a different program written are part of your test suite. The ability to generate a stop error is just to facilitate testing. I'm not suggesting this should in into production code. I'm sorry if I gave that impression.

--what causes a BSOD?
i found the wikipedia link helpful,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death

I wanted to create a BSOD-generator, I thought that some people might actually think it interesting that there's a program whose purpose is to BSOD you.

Problem with the CrashOnCtrlScroll method is that once you do that, obviously your computer shuts down, and you have no way of restoring the old settings. Thanks for all your help!

How can I code a driver?

>> Problem with the CrashOnCtrlScroll method is that once you do that, obviously your computer shuts down, and you have no way of restoring the old settings.

Of course you do. Just reboot the PC, and then restore the old settings.


>> How can I code a driver?

"How to write a Windows driver" : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms809956.aspx

>> Of course you do. Just reboot the PC, and then restore the old settings.

But I'm distributing my program.

Thanks for the link, helped me lots.

Ok ... Well, let us know if there's anything else you need.

The suggested answer doesn't actually answer the original question. The asker wasn't to generate a BSOD and Windows provides a built in diagnostic tool for doing this. This was documented by the following two answers.

{http:#24731548} {http:#24731561}

As it turned out in http:#25001032, that approach wouldn't work for the author, since he's looking for a tool to distribute, rather than a set of instructions. I assume that's why TheLearnedOne picked that answer.