Seriously, if you can shoulder Windows 10 this far off the rails, you must be doing something right. :^) EDIT: AND: The recovery msgBox came up after the Windows failure! Again, good going! (especially considering the adverse circumstances) ...and now to see if the same old load attempt can strike the fear of BSOD into Windows once more.... [definitely a popcorn and beer test session] ...on reboot, the game logged right back in without so much as a peep from the system thread. Oh, well. I guess I'll just have to acquire an extra eye or two to keep on this one :^) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ EDIT mk2: The Juicy Details 2018.0507.0545 hrs.UTC Event 0, DTSAPOService Service cannot be started. System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null. Parameter name: source at System.Linq.Enumerable.Contains[TSource](IEnumerable`1 source, TSource value, IEqualityComparer`1 comparer) at dts_apo_service.Service1.OnStart(String[]args) at System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase.ServiceQueuedMainCallback(Object state) Additional details include EventID=0, Task=0, Level=2, and keywords=0x80000000000000 So, something dropped a null argument into the wrong API, which passed it to the DTSAPOService which fell over and, apparently, this happens every day without consequence - so I probably jumped the gun on it. It's just an old sound driver which is so badly written it can't filter null arguments - no wonder the hardware got pulled! The actual problem was picked up when windows logged an Error Report for "Event 1001": 2018.0507.0546 hrs UTC Event 1001 Fault bucket , type 0 Event Name: BlueScreen Response: Not available Cab Id: 0 Problem Signature: P1: 1000007e P2: ffffffffc0000005 P3: fffff805bde05325 P4: ffff820ca3f0eeb8 P5: ffff820ca3f0e700 P6: 10_0_16299 P7: 0_0 P8: 256_1 P9: P10: Attached Files \\?\C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\050718-150578-01.dmp [2xXML, 1xCSV, 1xTXT files: all temp, all deleted, no recycle bin presence] These files may be available here: [Empty] Analysis symbol: Report ID: 7b299a34-2e27-4567-8bd5-49ffedbae403 Report Status: 4 Hashed bucket: