My bet is more users have experienced this in a Windows based computer than the number of users that know the above to be its name. Less users than that know what it is and what it means when it happens. Even less users know what causes it. And less than that, what to do about it. So I’m here to help change those numbers.

Abbreviated BSOD, sometimes BSoD, it’s basically a fatal crash of your computer, and by fatal crash I mean an error involving core components of your system that makes it so the computer cannot continue operating, and if it could, damage to your system would possibly ensue. As its name indicates, you see a blue screen in your computer’s monitor, and depending on how it is configured, it might give you some data as to why it happened (although that initial data is not the most useful), and it might save diagnostic information in a specific file for troubleshooting purposes. Depending on how it is set up the computer might restart by itself once the diagnostic file is saved to your disk, or it might stay there until you power cycle the computer (turn it off and then back on). Depending on the cause of the BSOD, power cycling the computer might clear up the error that caused the crash (until the conditions are replicated) or it might go into a cycle where the computer is not even able to boot up without going into a BSOD, thus creating a vicious circle.

So what is it and what it means we have now covered. Next, what causes it and what you can do about it.

Stay tuned for part 2 next week. Same time, same channel!