Windows Internals, Fifth Edition

The Blue Screen

Regardless of the reason for a system crash, the function that actually performs the crash is KeBugCheckEx, documented in the Windows Driver Kit (WDK). This function takes a stop code (sometimes called a bugcheck code) and four parameters that are interpreted on a per–stop code basis. After KeBugCheckEx masks out all interrupts on all processors of the system, it switches the display into a low-resolution VGA graphics mode (one implemented by all Windows-supported video cards), paints a blue background, and then displays the stop code, followed by some text suggesting what the user can do. Finally, KeBugCheckEx calls any registered device driver bugcheck callbacks (registered by calling the KeRegisterBugCheckCallback function), ...