%0 Conference Proceedings %B 20th Large Installation System Administration %D 2006 %T Windows XP Kernel Crash Analysis %A Archana Ganapathi %A Viji Ganapathi %A David Patterson %C Washington, DC %I USENIX Association %P 12-12 %U http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa06/tech/full_papers/ganapathi/ganapathi.pdf %X PC users have started viewing crashes as a fact of life rather than a problem. To improve operating system dependability, systems designers and programmers must analyze and understand failure data. In this paper, we analyze Windows XP kernel crash data collected from a population of volunteers who contribute to the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) project. We found that OS crashes are predominantly caused by poorly-written device driver code. Users as well as product developers will benefit from understanding the crash behaviors elaborated in this paper. %8 2006