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November 20, 2000

How do I blue screen Windows 2000 on demand?

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A. Win2K includes a feature that lets you crash the OS by holding the right Ctrl key and pressing the Scroll Lock key twice. To enable this feature, perform the following steps:

  1. Start regedit.exe.
  2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\ Parameters.
  3. From the Edit menu, select New, DWORD.
  4. Enter a name of CrashOnCtrlScroll, and press Enter.
  5. Double-click the new value, and set it to any nonzero value (e.g., 1). Click OK.
  6. Close regedit.
  7. Reboot your system.

Now, when you hold the right Ctrl key and press the Scroll Lock key twice, the system will crash and display a bug check code of MANUALLY_INITIATED_CRASH (0xE2). This keystroke combination works in some situations where Ctrl+Alt+Del has no effect.

End of Article



Reader Comments
I followed the exact instruction but did not work , I get an error message saying the selected key (parameters) does not allow me to add a valus or a key. I am logged in as an administrator
Thanks

Jihad Chemaitelli November 25, 2000


I'm curious. Why would anyone want to purposely crash their system? Is there something to gain from it or is it just for fun?

Thanks,

John Carbuccia November 28, 2000


This work in Windows XP SP2 as well.

Anonymous User April 01, 2005 (Article Rating: )


Bullshit. I have WinXP SP1 and it doesn't work.

Anonymous User June 09, 2005 (Article Rating: )


usb keyboards doesn't work

Anonymous User August 07, 2005 (Article Rating: )


Why would you want to manually crash a box? Simple, if the box has hung and will not respond. Usually in this situation, the only option you have is to reboot, however, you learn nothing at all by doing this. If you crash the system, you will be able to load the crash dump in a debugger and see the stack. This will allow you to figure out roughly what the system was doing at the time. You might be able to narrow the issue down to a driver or application. This might also help Microsoft support or the vendor of the application at fault.

This can also work with USB keyboards, follow the steps in KB244139.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/244139

peter_field22 February 06, 2008 (Article Rating: )


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