220-1102 Software Troubleshooting Practice Question
A technician is troubleshooting a Windows 10 workstation that blue screens with various stop codes. The technician suspects a device driver is causing the crashes but cannot identify which one. The crashes are intermittent. Which built-in tool should the technician enable to force the system to crash and create a dump file when a specific driver misbehaves, allowing the technician to identify the faulty driver?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse Event Viewer's ability to log driver errors with Driver Verifier's proactive crash-forcing mechanism, failing to recognize that only Driver Verifier can deliberately crash the system to generate a dump file for driver identification.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Driver Verifier Manager
Driver Verifier Manager (verifier.exe) is the correct built-in tool because it can be configured to stress-test drivers by forcing the system to crash and generate a memory dump file when a driver behaves improperly, such as by issuing invalid I/O calls or corrupting memory. This allows the technician to identify the specific faulty driver by analyzing the crash dump, even for intermittent crashes. Other tools like Windows Memory Diagnostic test RAM, not drivers, and Event Viewer or Performance Monitor log events but do not force crashes to isolate driver faults.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Windows Memory Diagnostic
Why it's wrong here
Windows Memory Diagnostic performs a low-level test of physical RAM by writing and reading patterns to detect bad memory modules, which is a possible cause of blue screens like 0x0000000A. However, it does not exercise or validate kernel-mode driver code, so it cannot identify a faulty driver that is triggering the bugcheck. Since the system is crashing with a driver-related issue, this tool is not the correct first step.
- ✓
Driver Verifier Manager
Why this is correct
Driver Verifier Manager (verifier.exe) enables fault-injection and stress testing on selected kernel-mode drivers, checking for illegal memory access, IRQL violations, and pool corruption. When a driver violates one of these conditions, Verifier deliberately crashes the system with a bugcheck that names the offending driver, making it the definitive tool for isolating the cause of a repeatable BSOD. This active testing directly targets the driver layer, unlike passive log viewers.
- ✗
Event Viewer
Why it's wrong here
Event Viewer aggregates Windows logs, including Event ID 41 (Kernel-Power) and Event ID 1001 (BugCheck), which provide post-mortem details like the bugcheck code and path to the minidump. While useful for historical analysis, it is a reactive tool that cannot load, execute, or stress drivers to provoke a crash. It simply reports what already happened; without an ability to recreate the blue screen, it won't pinpoint the responsible driver.
- ✗
Performance Monitor
Why it's wrong here
Performance Monitor (perfmon.exe) captures real-time performance counters for processors, memory, disk, and even network, allowing you to spot trends or resource bottlenecks. It has no mechanism to inject faults, manipulate driver behavior, or dynamically test driver stability under artificial stress. Monitoring dashboard metrics cannot force a problematic driver to surface, so it provides no actionable information for resolving a driver-caused blue screen.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Troubleshoot: Application Crashes
Key term
Windows
Windows is a family of operating systems developed by Microsoft that manages computer hardware and software, providing a graphical user interface for users to interact with their devices.
Key term
Windows 10
Windows 10 is a personal computer operating system developed by Microsoft that combines the familiarity of Windows 7 with the modern features of Windows 8, designed to run on a wide range of devices from desktops to tablets.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 220-1102 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 220-1102 exam.