Crash to Desktop

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A Crash to Desktop (or CTD) is a computer program crash which is said to occur when a program (especially video games) unexpectedly quits, abruptly taking the user back to the desktop. Usually, the term is applied only to crashes where no error is displayed, hence all the user sees as a result of the crash is the desktop. Many times there is no apparent action that causes a CTD. During normal function, the game may freeze for a shorter period of time, and then close by itself. Also during normal function, the game may become a black screen and play the last few seconds of sound (depending on the size of the buffer) that was being played repeatedly before it crashes to desktop. Other times it may appear to be triggered by a certain action, such as loading an area.

The CTD bugs are considered particularly problematic for users. Since they frequently display no error message, it can be very difficult to track down the source of the problem, especially if the times they occur and the actions taking place right before the CTD do not appear to have any pattern or common ground. Though, overheating, overclocking and older versions of Windows (before Windows XP) are some of the common causes. One way to track down the source of CTDs for games is to run them in windowed-mode. Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest operating system, has a new feature that can help track down the cause of a CTD problem when it occurs on any program. Windows XP also included a similar feature as well.^{[citation needed]}