Microsoft’s “blue screen of death” is about to die

If you’ve got a Windows PC, you will have experienced the dreaded “blue screen of death,” your computer’s scream that the operating system has been completely pooched. Specifically, it indicates something called a “stop error,” which means Window’s can’t operate safely anymore. Sometimes the fix is easy (a simple restart), sometimes not (a kernal issue, corrupted files, a bad driver, or heaven forbid, hardware issues.)

The original looked like this.

Then it was updated to this in 2012.

Microsoft says it’s killing the BSoD effective on later this summer on newer Windows devices–or, as Microsoft says “streamlining the unexpected restart experience.”

Windows will still crash (all operating systems have bad days), but Microsoft says that recovery will be quicker and simpler. If you have Windows 11, you will have things upgraded soon. Let’s hope you never have to see the new screen, which is…black. The Black Screen of Death seems a lot more ominous and horrifying, doesn’t it?

As someone wrote quoting Neil Young, “Out of the blue, into the black.”