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Can I change the Blue
Screen of Death (BSOD) color to
something other than blue?
You sure can!
In Windows 2000/XP/2003,
each time the Windows Kernel crashes, a
blue screen appears, giving the
administrator some clues and information
as to what has caused the error. This
screen, because of its blue color and
catastrophic nature, was nicknamed BSOD
- Blue Screen Of Death.
Why blue - no one knows,
but what I do know is the fact that the
blue screen can be changed to a
different color, thus creating your own
YSOD or RSOD or even WSOD...
To do so
follow these steps:
-
Open
the SYSTEM.INI file found in
the %systemroot% folder (i.e.
C:\Windows or other). You can
easily open the file by running
SYSEDIT from the Run command, or
by using Notepad.exe.
-
Locate the [386enh]
section in the file:
-
If not
already present, create the
following new entries:
MessageBackColor=
MessageTextColor=
and give it a value
according to the following list:
-
0 = black
-
1 = blue
-
2 = green
-
3 = cyan
-
4 = red
-
5 = magenta
-
6 = yellow/brown
-
7 = white
-
8 = gray
-
9 = bright blue
-
A = bright green
-
B = bright cyan
-
C = bright red
-
D = bright
magenta
-
E = bright yellow
-
F = bright white
For example:
MessageBackColor=2
MessageTextColor=F
will change the BSOD
to Green with bright white text.
Note: Use
CAPITAL LETTERS, i.e. F and not f.
-
Close
SYSTEM.INI while saving your
changes.
-
Restart the computer.
Now wait for the system
to crash (supposedly it shouldn't be
crashing so often...) and behold
the horror.
The reason behind this
tweak is for people that have certain
forms of visual impairment and are only
able to use Windows when it is set to
high contrast mode. This setting allows
the BSOD to be set to high contrast
colors as well, making it easier for the
visually impaired to read the
information in them. |
