A fatal system error, also known as a system crash, stop error, kernel error, or bug check, is when an operating system halts the moment it reaches a condition where it cannot operate safely.
In Microsoft Windows, a fatal system error can be deliberately caused from a kernel-mode driver with either the KeBugCheck or KeBugCheckEx function. However, this should only be done as a last option when a critical driver has corrupted data and it is impossible to recover from the problem. This is a design based on the Unix-like way of kernel panicking and logging. Windows is not the first operating system to use the term Bugcheck for this function. For example, VMS used this terminology several years before Windows was developed. Facilities such as these help in debugging error conditions from which the operating system cannot, or decides that it should not attempt to, recover.
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Famous quotes containing the words fatal, system and/or error:
“I envy not only their talents
And fertile lack of balance
But the appearance of choice
In their sad and fatal voice.”
—Roy Fuller (b. 1912)
“Loving feels lonely in a violent world,
irrelevant to people burning like last year’s weed
with bellies distended, with fish throats agape
and flesh melting down to glue.
We can no longer shut out the screaming
That leaks through the ventilation system ...”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)
“There is a lot of difference between tempting and leading into error. God tempts but does not lead into error. To tempt is to provide opportunities for us to do certain things if we do not love God, but putting us under no necessity to do so. To lead into error is to compel a man necessarily to conclude and follow a falsehood.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)