After almost four decades of faithful service, Microsoft has decided to say goodbye to the legendary "Blue Screen of Death" (BSOD) in Windows. Instead, users will see a new, more dramatic one - the "Black Screen of Death". This was reported by The Verge with reference to David Weston, Microsoft’s Vice President for Enterprise Security and Operating Systems, as reported by UNN.
Details
The updated error screen will debut in Windows 11 this summer. It features a simplified design: the blue background, sad face, and QR code will disappear. Instead, there will be a black background, which looks more like the screen that appears during system updates. However, it will contain useful information, including a stop code and the name of the problematic driver, which will help to quickly identify the source of the failure.
"This is an attempt to make the error screen more understandable and provide more useful information - both to us and to users. This makes it easier to get to the root of the problem and fix it quickly,"
According to him, the new BSOD will help to better distinguish between Windows errors and third-party component failures.
Along with the new "black" screen, Microsoft will also introduce Quick Machine Recovery, a feature that will allow quickly recovering computers that fail to boot.
These changes are part of a broader company initiative to improve Windows reliability—especially following last year’s incident with CrowdStrike, when millions of devices encountered a BSOD error during bootup.