Say goodbye to the infamous Windows 'blue screen of death'

1 week_ago 16

World

Nearly each Windows idiosyncratic has had a run-in with the "Blue Screen of Death" astatine immoderate constituent successful their computing lives. Now, aft much than 40 years of being acceptable against a precise recognizable blue, Microsoft is giving the notorious mistake connection a makeover.

After 40 years, Microsoft is updating its mistake connection to show connected a achromatic background

The Associated Press

· Posted: Jun 26, 2025 11:08 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

An mistake  connection   is displayed connected  a bluish  surface  with a frowning emoticon and a QR code.

After much than 40 years, Microsoft is making updates to its infamous 'blue surface of death,' which is displayed erstwhile a PC utilizing Windows bundle encounters an mistake and needs to restart. The tech elephantine says its caller mistake connection volition beryllium shorter and look connected a achromatic background. (Microsoft)

Nearly each Windows idiosyncratic has had a run-in with the infamous "Blue Screen of Death" astatine immoderate constituent successful their computing lives. Now, aft much than 40 years of being acceptable against a precise recognizable blue, the updated mistake connection volition soon beryllium displayed crossed a achromatic background.

The changes come arsenic portion of broader efforts by Microsoft to amended the resiliency of the Windows operating strategy successful the aftermath of past year's CrowdStrike outage that saw millions of Windows machines crash worldwide.

"Now it's easier than ever to navigate unexpected restarts and retrieve faster," Microsoft wrote successful a Thursday announcement.

As portion of that effort, Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash., says it's "streamlining" what users acquisition erstwhile encountering "unexpected restarts" that origin disruptions.

And that means a makeover for the notorious mistake screen.

A antheral   successful  a pilot's azygous   leans against a railing successful  an airdrome  arsenic  a pistillate   stops carrying luggage stops to speech   to him arsenic  they basal   successful  beforehand   of a large, horizontal surface  displaying an mistake  connection   connected  a agleam  bluish  background.

United Airlines employees hold by a show displaying an mistake connection wrong Terminal C astatine Newark International Airport successful New Jersey connected July 19, 2024, erstwhile flights were grounded owed to a worldwide tech outage. It was caused by an update to CrowdStrike bundle that crashed Microsoft Windows systems astir the world. (Bing Guan/Reuters)

A shorter message

Beyond the now-black background, the caller Windows mistake surface has a somewhat shorter message. It's besides nary longer accompanied by a frowning emoticon, alternatively showing a percent completed for the restart process.

Microsoft says this "simplified" idiosyncratic interface for unexpected restarts volition beryllium disposable aboriginal this summertime connected each of its Windows 11 (version 24H2) devices.

And for PCs that whitethorn not restart successfully, Microsoft also said it volition be adding a "quick instrumentality recovery" mechanism. The institution noted this will beryllium peculiarly utile during wide outages, as Microsoft "can broadly deploy targeted remediations" and let automated fixes "without requiring analyzable manual involution from IT."

Microsoft said this mechanism will be "generally available" aboriginal this summertime connected Windows 11 — with further capabilities acceptable to motorboat aboriginal successful the year.

read-entire-article