Fix Win32k.Sys Blue Screen

What is win32k.sys?

Win32k.sys is a Windows driver that is responsible for windowing and graphics. It is a part of Windows and should not be deleted.

How to fix Win32k.Sys BSOD using Windows debugger?

If you look at the bottom of the BSOD you will  see a line that says “Begining dump of physical memory”. Windows debugger can be used to analyze this crash dump and find out what caused your computer to prompt a blue screen.

Download Windows debugger tool.  For debugger to work, you need something called the “symbols”. Symbols are Operating System specific. For Windows Xp you need to download Symbols for Xp. For Vista you need to download Symbols for Vista and so on… You can let the Windows debugger download the Symbols online, since its the easy way. To do that, follow the steps below,

To use the Microsoft Symbol Server

1. Make sure you have installed the latest version of Debugging Tools for Windows.
2. Start a debugging session.
3. Decide where to store the downloaded symbols (the “downstream store”). This can be a local drive or a UNC path.
4. Set the debugger symbol path as follows, substituting your downstream store path for DownstreamStore.

   SRV*DownstreamStore*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols

For example, to download symbols to c:\mssymbols, you would add the following to your symbol path:
SRV*c:\mssymbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols

The next step is to analyze the crash dump file, that is located on the C:\windows\MEMORY.DMP. This is what you see on the bottom of the blue screen. To open the crash dump from the Windows debugger, click file > open crash dump and select the location of C:\windows\MEMORY.DMP

It will take a moment to load this file. After it loads, you get a prompt to type !analyze to analyze the crash dump. Type !analyze. Now the Windows debugger analyzes the crash dump. After its done. Open the crash dump in the notepad. Find the line, PROCESS_NAME:

The process you find, is the one that is responsible for the blue screen. Most of the time, its some mouse driver that is causing the problem. You need to uninstall that, and reinstall to the working version if you need one.

That’s how you analyze the crash dumps generated upon a blue screen error to find the process that is causing the problem. You can search more about that process and find a solution.

Note: Most of the Blue Screen errors are caused by the outdated, missing or corrupt Drivers. Update your system drivers now!