What can I learn from the “The system has recovered from a serious error.” dialog?

Question

Occasionally I see an error dialog that looks a lot like the one pictued below.

I want to understand what went wrong, so I click to see what data the error report contains.

The next dialog that I see looks something like the one pictured below.

What information does each of these values represent?

• BCCode
• BCP1
• BCP2
• BCP3
• BCP4
• OSVer
• SP
• Product

How can I use these values to better understand what the cause of the error was?

Answer 1

What information does each of these values represent?

• BCCode = Bug Check Code
• BCP1-4 = Bug Check Parameter

They represent what you will see in a typical BSOD - a STOP error code followed by 4 parameters:

The other values identify the operating system, service pack and the product causing the crash:

• OSVer = OS Version
• SP = Service Pack

How can I use these values to better understand what the cause of the error was?

You may use NirSoft's BlueScreenView to interpret minidump files which are created during 'blue screen of death' crashes or check the bugcodes.h file (open with Notepad) for a full list of bug check codes.

Answer 2

You won't learn much from their "error reports", but whenever there is a serious STOP error like that, there will also be an event in the system event log which is more verbose.