Surviving the Blue Screen of Death

The vast majority of lawyers are using PCs running Windows.  That means the vast majority of lawyers have seen gotten The Blue Screen of Death, a.k.a BSoD.  That is when you are working just fine - finishing up that big brief due tomorrow - when Windows completely freezes on you and your screen goes blue with incomprehensible computer babble:

End of the world?  Time for weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth?  No, Windows is actually trying to help!  (OK, when have you heard that before!)

Nearly every time you see the BSoD, Windows is trying to tell you what error has happened, often will give you advice about how to troubleshoot the problem, a memory dump for analysis, and the stop code.  This information can be invaluable to figuring out and fixing what is ailing your computer.

Paul Lilly at Maximum PC has help for you.  His post Blue Screen of Death Survival Kit:  Every Error Explained walks you through the BSoD problem, explains the error messages, and gives you tips on how to fix them.  Well worth a look, particularly if your PC is getting older and more prone to BSoD problems.

By the way, if you are running Vista you are not, as many people think, immune from the BSoD - even if it is not exactly blue any more!

- Peter H. Berge

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