Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA) is an operating system hardware error handling mechanism introduced with
Windows Vista SP1 and
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008, codenamed "Longhorn Server" (alternatives: "Windows Vista Server" or "Windows Server Vista"), is the seventh major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server b ...
as a successor to
Machine Check Architecture (MCA) on previous versions of
Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
. The architecture consists of several software components that interact with the hardware and firmware of a given platform to handle and notify regarding hardware error conditions. Collectively, these components provide: a generic means of discovering errors, a common error report format for those errors, a way of preserving error records, and an error event model based up on
Event Tracing for Windows (ETW).
WHEA "builds on the PCI Express Advanced Reporting to provide more detailed information about system errors and a common reporting structure."
WHEA allows third-party software to interact with the operating system and react to certain hardware events. For example, when a new CPU is added to a running system—a Windows Server feature known as
Dynamic Hardware Partitioning—the hardware error component stack is notified that a new processor was installed.
In contrast,
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
supports the
ACPI Platform Error Interface
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is an open standard that operating systems can use to discover and configure computer hardware components, to perform power management (e.g. putting unused hardware components to sleep), auto con ...
(APEI) which is introduced in ACPI 5.0.
See also
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Machine-check exception (MCE)
*
Reliability, availability and serviceability
Reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS), also known as reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM), is a computer hardware engineering term involving reliability engineering, high availability, and serviceability design. The p ...
(RAS)
*
RAMS
In engineering, reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS)High availability
High availability (HA) is a characteristic of a system that aims to ensure an agreed level of operational performance, usually uptime, for a higher than normal period.
There is now more dependence on these systems as a result of modernization ...
(HA)
*
Blue screen of death
The blue screen of death (BSoD) or blue screen error, blue screen, fatal error, bugcheck, and officially known as a stop erroris a fatal system error, critical error screen displayed by the Microsoft Windows operating systems to indicate a cr ...
References
{{Windows Components
Windows components
Windows Vista
Windows Server 2008
Computer errors