How can I intentionally crash my lappy?

[mechtheist]

I am no programmer, but know the rudiments [the rudi'est of rudiments]
of working with Python. I have a simple need, to have a simple
script/app I can run that will crash my PC. On my desktops, I can
always hit the reset, but that is not an option with my laptop. Can
anyone tell me of an easy way to guarantee a program will instantly
kill/BSOD my windows7/64bit laptop?

Any help is much appreciated.

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

I am no programmer, but know the rudiments [the rudi'est of rudiments]
of working with Python. I have a simple need, to have a simple
script/app I can run that will crash my PC. On my desktops, I can
always hit the reset, but that is not an option with my laptop. Can
anyone tell me of an easy way to guarantee a program will instantly
kill/BSOD my windows7/64bit laptop?

Any help is much appreciated.

You realise that the operating system (yes, even Windows!) is designed to
*not* crash no matter what the application does?

(The OS may live up to that requirement imperfectly, but still, it tries.)


You'll probably find that task easier from C than from Python. But if I
were to attempt such a strange thing, I'd try to shut down some critical
processes used by the OS. I'm not much of a Windows person, but if you
call up the task manager (ctrl-alt-del) and inspect the process list,
then find one that causes the machine to crash if you shut it down, you
can probably do the same thing from a script.

 

[rob]

I am no programmer, but know the rudiments [the rudi'est of rudiments]
of working with Python. I have a simple need, to have a simple
script/app I can run that will crash my PC. On my desktops, I can
always hit the reset, but that is not an option with my laptop. Can
anyone tell me of an easy way to guarantee a program will instantly
kill/BSOD my windows7/64bit laptop?

Any help is much appreciated.

You realise that the operating system (yes, even Windows!) is designed to
*not* crash no matter what the application does?

(The OS may live up to that requirement imperfectly, but still, it tries.)


You'll probably find that task easier from C than from Python. But if I
were to attempt such a strange thing, I'd try to shut down some critical
processes used by the OS. I'm not much of a Windows person, but if you
call up the task manager (ctrl-alt-del) and inspect the process list,
then find one that causes the machine to crash if you shut it down, you
can probably do the same thing from a script.

Thank you, good approach ideas there. Windows has gotten a lot better
about crashing, but it is definitely still way the f 'imperfect'. Now I
just have to figure a way to make it imperfecter.