The Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) is one of the most hated things in tech. It’s a feature so infamous, especially for the early years of Windows, that the prospect of seeing one today still annoys and terrifies me. Dealing with BSOD occurrences is much simpler for the user, and problems can be fixed faster. But the Blue Screen of Death is such an iconic signal of impending doom that it’ll still get my heart racing every time I encounter one. Thankfully, Microsoft made a huge change to the Blue Screen of Death in Windows 11. You’ll never see it again. In blue.
The Black Screen of Death will replace the blue one, reports The Verge. So the BSOD acronym will not change once Windows 11 adopts the change.
You will still encounter the same error message, despite the color change. The Black Screen of Death will include the same annoying smiley, the same error message that tells you Windows is collecting data, and the same QR code.
While you might not immediately associate the new Windows 11 error color with old memories of Windows issues eating hours and days of your life, BSOD will still be there to greet you when things go wrong.
Why Windows needs the Blue Screen of Death
It’s unclear why Microsoft is replacing the iconic Blue Screen of Death in Windows 11. But the new operating system also comes with new black logon and shutdown screens. Windows 11 also supports dark mode, although that isn’t a good reason to explain the BSOD color change. Maybe Microsoft is going for design consistency and uniformity here.
Whatever the color, the BSOD errors need to exist in Windows 11 and all the updates that will follow.
The Blue Screen of Death was so terrifying in the early days because of its ominous message. Something went wrong with the PC, and you needed to fix it. Often, the fix would be a fresh reinstall of Windows. And that was a super annoying process in the old days. It’s no longer the same in Windows 10.
Commercial users aside, BSOD is essential to IT professionals to diagnose issues with a Windows installation. They need to know exactly what went wrong, how to fix the problem, and prevent it from ever happening again. The Windows Blue Screen of Death isn’t just a user interface element. When it appears, the BSOD message tells you that the computer is collecting data related to the crash.
That’s why BSOD will continue to have a future in Windows 11. You’ll call it the Black Screen of Death now and hope you’ll never have to personally deal with it.
