Microsoft Windows 10 is now on red alert, or in Microsoft’s words, facing the Blue Screen of Death. Many offices and airlines around the world are experiencing workflow issues as their computer systems running Windows 10 have crashed and are now displaying a blue screen error with the message, “Windows did not load correctly.” Although the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) is not a new problem for Microsoft, its current impact is particularly severe this time around.

But what exactly causes this blue screen error, or why does it seem to be deadly – ​​Blue Screen of Death?

What is the blue screen of death?

Blue Screen of Death – BSOD – officially called Stop Error or Stop Screen by Microsoft, is a serious system error on the Windows operating system that indicates that the system is experiencing a serious problem and needs to be fixed immediately. Whenever a system encounters a BSOD, the Windows system stops all operations to prevent further damage to the machine, often causing any unsaved work to be lost. While a system error may not seem like a major problem, the Blue Screen of Death is a serious problem and is ranked just below cyber problems like malware or ransomware.

What does the blue screen of death look like?

Whenever a Windows system faces a BSOD, its main screen shuts down and a blue screen appears on the display with the error details in white text.

Notably, the BSOD error screen in Windows 7 and earlier systems used to show detailed text with technical information – although it was difficult and was often in words that a normal user could understand. However with Windows 8 and the latest version, Microsoft has now simplified the screen and shows a sad emoji along with a QR code that users can scan on their smartphones to get more information about the error, thus removing the technical jargon to make it more user-friendly.

When a system encounters a BSOD, the device stops all operations to prevent possible hardware damage and creates a memory dump file. This file contains information about the state of the system at the time of the crash and can be used for troubleshooting. After the memory dump is saved, the system must be restarted.

After restarting the device, Windows begins an automatic troubleshooting and repair process. If the operating system cannot resolve the problem, the system requires manual troubleshooting such as rolling back a recent driver update, checking for BIOS updates, or running hardware diagnostics.

What can cause the Blue Screen of Death?

BSOD problems usually originate at the Windows kernel level, and can be either a hardware or software issue.

A software problem may occur due to the following reasons:

Driver errors: The most common software-related cause is faulty drivers. Drivers are essential parts of the software that allow the operating system to communicate with a hardware device. If a driver becomes corrupted or is incompatible it can trigger a BSOD.

Firmware or BIOS bugs: Sometimes low-level software bugs in the firmware or BIOS can also cause the system to encounter BSOD. But in this case users can resolve the issue by updating the BIOS or firmware from the manufacturer’s website.

If the application crashes: This is rare, but some applications that run at a very low system level can also cause a BSOD.

BSOD due to hardware problems

Faulty hardware: Problems with critical hardware components of the system, such as the graphics card, sound card, SSD (solid-state drive) or RAM (memory), can also cause BSOD.

Low disk space: Insufficient disk space on the primary drive can also trigger a BSOD. This is because the Windows operating system relies on disk space for paging files and swap files, and a lack of system space can interrupt these processes.

Malware: Malicious software can also corrupt the system files or the master boot record, resulting in the system encountering a BSOD.

What is causing the BSOD this time?

Right now, the reason why Windows 10 systems are facing BSOD is because of a faulty update released by CrowdStrike for its cybersecurity program called Falcon. This update is part of the Falcon suite of software that deals with cybersecurity defense in computers. A cybersecurity expert on Twitter said, “CrowdStrike Falcon agents are exploding right now and causing Blue Screen of Death boot loops on every endpoint. Massive outages reported globally.”

As far as the fix is ​​concerned, there is no proper fix for this issue yet. The fix will probably come with another update by CrowdStrike and Microsoft, but that might take some time. However, there is a manual fix available on the web, taken from a note issued by CrowdStrike to its users. This fix reads:

1. Boot Windows into Safe Mode or WRE.
2. Go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike
3. Locate and delete the file that matches “C-00000291*.sys”
Boot up normally.

In other words, if you are part of the IT team and dealing with CrowdStrike and Windows 10 bugs, you can take a look at this potential solution.