Blue Screen of Death in Windows won't be blue starting this summer. How and why will it change?

The legendary blue screen of death (also known as Blue Screen of Death or BSOD), which has been with us for almost 40 years, will soon undergo a radical transformation. According to information confirmed by Microsoft in an interview with The Verge, the traditional blue color will be replaced by black. The change will come as part of the Windows 11 summer update, meaning we will encounter it in the coming months.

Simpler and clearer error message

The new black screen of death (Black Screen of Death) will not only be a color change. Microsoft has decided to completely redesign the entire look of this dreaded error message. The traditional frowning smiley and QR code, which were part of the screen in newer system versions, will disappear from the design. The result will be a minimalist black design that resembles the screen displayed during Windows updates.

Although the new version looks simpler, it is actually intended to be more useful (or at least that’s how Microsoft presents it). It will still contain the error code and identification of the problematic system driver, which should help IT administrators and regular users identify the cause of the problem faster. The advantage will be that IT specialists will no longer have to download and analyze memory dumps using special tools like WinDbg to find out what caused the system crash.

The goal is faster problem diagnosis

David Weston, Vice President for Enterprise and OS Security at Microsoft, stated in an interview with The Verge: “It’s about clarity and providing better information that allows us and customers to quickly get to the root of the problem so we can fix it faster. Part of it is clearer information about exactly what went wrong, whether it’s a Windows problem or a component problem.”

The change to the error screen is part of Microsoft’s broader efforts to improve Windows system resilience after last year’s incident with CrowdStrike, which caused millions of Windows computers to boot directly into the blue screen of death – thus limiting operations at places like airports, healthcare facilities, and banks. Along with the new black screen of death, the company also plans to introduce the Quick Machine Recovery feature, designed for rapid recovery of computers that cannot boot.

The Blue Screen of Death wasn’t always blue

The blue screen of death has accompanied Windows users since the early 1990s, first appearing in Windows 3.0, but gaining its iconic form primarily with the arrival of Windows NT. Over its almost four decades of existence, it has become synonymous with fatal system errors and driver issues. Over the years, it has undergone several changes – in Windows 8, a QR code and a sad smiley were added, in Windows 11, Microsoft briefly experimented with a black version but eventually returned to the traditional blue. Now it seems the black color is coming definitively.

Blue Screen of Death in Windows won't be blue starting this summer. How and why will it change? Adam Kurfürst News Adam Kurfürst News

Interestingly, Microsoft has experimented with the color of this error screen several times. In Windows 98 and ME, it was sometimes red, and in internal testing versions of Windows, developers used a green variant. Although the technical details displayed on the screen changed, the blue color remained constant for decades – until now.

How do you like Microsoft’s decision to change the iconic blue screen?

Source: The Verge