Windows 7 Blue Screen of Death

BSOD-0p6b

It has happen… I have been exposed to the blue screen of death in Windows 7.   The error I got was for MEMORY_MANAGEMENT.  I did some research and there appears to be no resolution for the error.  Windows KB has nothing related to Win7.  They have some updates on fixing the error for win xp sp2.  I was shocked when I got the BSOD screen.  This is the first time I was seeing it.  I am back Windows Vista today. Since both my 64 bit versions of Win7 or Vista 64 won’t boot.

Further Investigation:  I realized that Vista 64 wasn’t booting either. So maybe it really was a memory issue.  I am running 2x2GB sticks and 2x1GB sticks. The 2x1GB might be causing an issue. Vista 32 has been up for now 1 hour, only uses the first 4GB due to 32 bit memory restriction. I will continue to monitor it throughout the day.  I am so glad I didn’t wipe my Vista 32 version. I will update this article once I find out more information.  I also emailed Microsoft for some answers.

Update: 11/10/09 – 4:12 PM CST
Vista 32 bit remained running for about 15 mins after I posted the original post.  It crashed while I ran a divx video.  I came to conclusion that the blue screen was warranted.  I received it on all three OSs (vista 32, vista 64 and win 7 64).  The computer now has been up for 3 hours. It has been working fine. I was able to watch divx video and burn a cd.  The problem appeared to be OCZ PC2 6400 ram I had installed.  It was installed for about 3 weeks without any issues.   Memory Test was taking to long so not sure if it has gone bad.

Recap
Problem: MEMORY_MANAGEMENT BSOD error in Windows 7
Solution: Check your memory it is possible that it may gone bad.  Try running Memtest if you suspect there is nothing wrong with the memory.

Windows 7 – Win XP Mode

I downloaded Windows 7 – XP mode the other day from the virtual pc site. Its basically win xp vhd (virtual hard disk) running in virtual machine. The install unfortunately was not that fast. Took about 30 minutes to set up. (PC specs: 2.4 Intel Quad Core, 6 GB Ram)

Some screens from the install.
win_xp_mode

win_7_xp_mode2

Windows 7 Keys

Microsoft doesnt have unique keys for beta release of Windows 7. Regular users are getting the following (tech net/msdn users are getting different keys)

32bit:
QXV7B-K78W2-QGPR6-9FWH9-KGMM7
6JKV2-QPB8H-RQ893-FW7TM-PBJ73
GG4MQ-MGK72-HVXFW-KHCRF-KW6KY
TQ32R-WFBDM-GFHD2-QGVMH-3P9GC
4HJRK-X6Q28-HWRFY-WDYHJ-K8HDH

64bit:
RFFTV-J6K7W-MHBQJ-XYMMJ-Q8DCH
482XP-6J9WR-4JXT3-VBPP6-FQF4M
JYDV8-H8VXG-74RPT-6BJPB-X42V4
D9RHV-JG8XC-C77H2-3YF6D-RYRJ9
7XRCQ-RPY28-YY9P8-R6HD8-84GH3

Windows 7 first freeze

Well it was too good to be true. I experienced my first Windows 7 freeze. I downloaded IM client Digsby (great Adium alternative for windows) with Firefox and while it was installing Firefox got not responding. I was unable to end task through task manager. Instead when I accessed task manager W7 all together froze. Had to do a force quit and restart.

Stay tuned for more posts on Windows 7 beta reviews, All month long.