Platinum Edition Using® Microsoft® Windows® XP

Recovering When the System Fails

If you believe in Murphy's law that “if anything can go wrong, it will,” then you already understand why Microsoft includes the ability to create a core dump in its operating systems. A core dump is that mysterious blue screen with white characters that you see when a Windows operating system, such as XP, has a system failure. It's also referred to jokingly as the “Blue Screen Of Death” (BSOD). A core dump includes specific information about a problem that Windows XP is unable to deal with on its own.

NOTE The official Microsoft name for the BSOD seems to be “Bug Check,” though they use a few different terms, and in conversation the Softies (software programmers at Microsoft) mostly seem to just use “Blue Screen.” ...