After that, Windows 10 (2016) added a QR code so instead of dropping the error message, you can quickly jump to the support page using your mobile phone. (And when I realise that restarting anyway doesn’t help). Then came Windows 11 (2021). This made it easier to do the dramatic visual change of blacking the BSOD, matching the system’s login and shutdown screen. That was after that I’m backperhaps in response to the cries of anguish from confused users and support desk engineers.
So, what’s the difference this time?
Back in Black: Why Microsoft is throwing away blue
In 2024, a failed Cloud Strike update left countless PCs unusable, defeating airlines, railways, banks, television stations, and more. What did they have in common? Everything proudly displayed the Blue Screen of Death. It’s not hard to imagine Microsoft wanting to distance itself from that image by not making crash screens symbolic and memorable Membership possibleand not very noticeable.
That’s not what Microsoft says. Officially, the new crash screen is part of a wider Windows Resiliency initiative designed to make Windows more resilient. And redesign in particular is about clarity and simplicity. According to David Weston, Microsoft Vice President of Enterprise and OS Security, “Improves readability, better fits Windows 11 design principles, and saves on-screen technical information when needed.”
There’s definitely an extra bonus too. Removing all the different visuals from the Windows crash screen makes Apple one less enjoyable. So no more BSOD colours and 🙁 MacOS PC icons are added slyly.
Blue Feeling: Microsoft may regret the change
But before Wired suggests that Black looks good for everyone, including the Windows lock screen, does Microsoft have to think again, just like in 2021?
A mouth stop tour of the book on Color Theory shows that blue is widely regarded as positive across cultures. It is most preferred and is associated with calm, quiet and abilities. It’s the sky and the sea. It’s a “probably everything is fine” shade. In contrast, black is absence of color. cold. Ominous. Void.
More importantly, the Blue Screen of Death Recognizable. You can find it across the room and quickly find out that something is very wrong. However, a black crash screen runs the risk of blending in with the update screen. And what you absolutely don’t want to do is to confuse the two in a way that is more or less. As Commenter Wired Spotted states, “Why do you make it the equivalent of a computer when you don’t change the color of the road sign?”
Whatever the reason, you just need to spit out negative images, integrate designs, simplify the experience, or change it for that reason, and the Blue Screen of Death is the time you rented. Still, the acronym for BSOD certainly lives on as Microsoft’s term “unexpected restart screen” is not likely to stick. That’s not a name. It’s an e-song expression.
It will always be a wired screen of death, whether in hue, black or blue. BSOD is dead. Live BSOD for a long time.
