How can I intentionally crash my lappy?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 02:45:18 -0600, mechtheist wrote:

> 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.



-- 
Steven