Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Why your computer still crashes (30 Sep 2004) You probably won't be able to figure out what's wrong with your computer by reading the gibberish on the Blue Screen of Death, but you can make an educated guess. A few years ago, Microsoft set up the Windows Error Reporting Service to help find out where crashes come from. After a Windows application—or your whole PC—shuts down, a box pops up asking you to send a confidential error report. Using pattern-matching software to sift through the data from millions of these reports, Microsoft discovered a surprising statistic. Seventy percent of Windows crashes involve one particular kind of software: device drivers. (I couldn't get stats for the Mac, but, at least anecdotally, device drivers are a major cause of drop-dead crashes.) Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2107471/ Read 33 more articles from Slate sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Ergonomic Soft Mouse and Armrest Mouse Pad     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy