Windows 11 Retires Blue in Favor of the Black Screen of Death

[AleksandarK]

Later this year, the iconic blue error screen that has tripped up Windows users for nearly 40 years will take on a new, darker appearance. Microsoft has confirmed its plan to replace the traditional Blue Screen of Death with a black background that omits the large frowning face and QR code. In its place, a single, clear stop code will sit at the bottom of the display, pinpointing the exact driver or component at fault. This leaner design first surfaced in Windows Insider builds and mirrors the progress screens seen during system updates. By stripping away extra visual elements, Microsoft aims to help both casual users and IT teams pinpoint and resolve issues more efficiently, with no crash-dump exports or deep-dive debugging tools required.

The revamped error screen will be available to all Windows 11 users in the late summer of 2025, accompanied by a new Quick Machine Recovery feature that aims to bring unbootable systems back online faster. David Weston, Microsoft's vice president of enterprise and OS security, says the redesign stems from lessons learned after last year's faulty CrowdStrike update sent countless machines into crash loops. Weston notes that the goal is to deliver straightforward, actionable details about what went wrong and whether the problem lies within Windows itself or an external component. Although Microsoft briefly experimented with a black error screen in earlier Insider releases, feedback drove a return to blue until now. With a sharper focus on clarity and faster recovery tools, Microsoft is set to retire the Blue Screen of Death and welcome the Black Screen of Death.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[N3utro]

Still a BSOD

 

[R-T-B]

OS/2 used a black screen of death.

Time is a circle.

 

[Shihab]

About the only thing BSODs were useful for is informing the user that they system crashed. Scary BSODs do that best. They are a bloody meme, for crying out loud!
A screen you need to look at twice to know it's not the usual shudown/restart one is the opposite. This is just stupid.

"Lessons learned from CrowdStrike" my a55. This is just someone getting an itch to change how something looks and grabbing for justifications.

 

[AusWolf]

This definitely requires an announcement. How about fixing issues causing those BSODs? Ah, no.

 

[R-T-B]

"Lessons learned from CrowdStrike" my a55. This is just someone getting an itch to change how something looks and grabbing for justifications.

To further point that out, this isn't the first time they got that itch. I knew I made a similar comment before:

U

Thread 'Microsoft Replaces the Blue Screen of Death with the Black Screen of Death'

Jul 6, 2021

Microsoft has updated the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) in the latest Windows 11 preview build to now be the Black Screen of Death. The Blue Screen of Death has been included since Windows 1.0 was released in 1985 and has received various changes over the years adding error codes, the sad face, and most recently in 2016 QR codes. The new Black Screen of Death was likely introduced to blend better with modern systems and is functionally identical to the previous version. Microsoft had previously introduced the Green Screen of Death for Windows Insider Preview Builds so if you are running the...

• Uskompuf
• Replies: 35
• Forum: News

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This definitely requires an announcement. How about fixing issues causing those BSODs? Ah, no.

It was on my local news so I think they are really pushing for coverage of this, lol.

 

[Frick]

"Lessons learned from CrowdStrike" my a55. This is just someone getting an itch to change how something looks and grabbing for justifications.

This is a different thing, but for a long time I've this is what app devs do.
"Everything is working great, we have good features; time for a UI overhaul!"
"With the same features though, right?"
"..."
"Right?"
"New colour scheme, we replaced the hot pink with purple!"

 

[wNotyarD]

This is a different thing, but for a long time I've this is what app devs do.
"Everything is working great, we have good features; time for a UI overhaul!"
"With the same features though, right?"
"..."
"Right?"
"New colour scheme, we replaced the hot pink with purple!"

What better move to show work's being made than changing the design of something people see all the time?

 

[phanbuey]

I found my new background.

 

[Axiomatic]

As someone whose job it used to be to decode BSOD's for their exact cause of failure and work the fix with development, I find this change hysterically hilarious. Nobody gives a crap anymore why things broke.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Reinventing the wheel is the foremost problem with Windows.

It needs a development reset. Throw it all in the garbage and restart from Windows 7, following its design language and desktop-centric workflow.

 

[W1zzard]

As someone whose job it used to be to decode BSOD's for their exact cause of failure and work the fix with development, I find this change hysterically hilarious. Nobody gives a crap anymore why things broke.

Indeed, I was debugging my kernel driver last week and was so happy that Windows Vista gave me an error address, took me only 5 minutes to fix the code once I had that

 

[Paganstomp]

I wanna pick my own Blue Screen of death....

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

I bet it took a whole team of qualified lazy bums, and 2 months, to decide to do this change, and 2 corporate execs to decide on the color.

 

[ZoneDymo]

atleast they got their priorities straight

 

[Pets4Ever]

I think the BSOD should show a picture of a grassy meadow and start playing soothing music. If the music plays for > 1hr, details for a suicide prevention hotline fades into view. If it lasts > 2 hrs, the generic soothing music switches to 'Angel' by Sarah Mclachlan

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Indeed, I was debugging my kernel driver last week and was so happy that Windows Vista gave me an error address, took me only 5 minutes to fix the code once I had that

Why is everyone pretending the new BSOD is useless when it provides an error code just like old BSODs?

 

[Dr. Dro]

Why is everyone pretending the new BSOD is useless when it provides an error code just like old BSODs?

It doesn't provide the kernel memory addresses, for instance. It's just a redesign for the sake of being a redesign, with thought to form but not to function.

Windows doesn't know what it wants to be anymore. These terminologies they use such as "Your PC", "Your device", it's still desperately trying to pass on as an OS designed for tablets, phones, laptops, anything but a desktop computer. The workflow continues to worsen as they insist on developing the OS for anything except computers in mind.

Windows just hasn't failed yet because everything is designed for it. Devs need to kick Microsoft in the teeth, but unfortunately the golden chance by Linux developers is being wasted on constant infighting. It's truly regrettable.

 

[dyonoctis]

This definitely requires an announcement. How about fixing issues causing those BSODs? Ah, no.

To be fair, there's too many factors including user induced that could provoke a BSOD. The price to pay for the freedom of having a wide range of hardware combination. You had bad luck with the silicon lottery and can't run ram with timings so tight and a speed so high ? BSOD. Dammaged Riser ? BSOD. Undervolt too aggressive ? BSOD. RTX 5000? BSOD. Raptor Lake ? BSOD. RX 5700? BSOD. First gen Ryzen? BSOD.

 

[Dr. Dro]

RTX 5000? BSOD. Raptor Lake ? BSOD

Considered I've both of these and don't have BSOD's, what's the point in making this statement? What's the point in drumming up FUD and inflammatory statements?

 

[dyonoctis]

Considered I've both of these and don't have BSOD's, what's the point in making this statement? What's the point in drumming up FUD and inflammatory statements?

I own a Raptor lake system myself, and never suffered any of those degradation issues, but I know people who did.
An unstable undervolt is also not garanteed to end up in a BSOD, sometimes the pc just freezes and you’ve got to hard reset, or it might just run fine for months until you fire up a very specific application. I was just citing exemples where windows itself isn’t at fault. But it’s true that for parity I should have cited the RX 5700, or first gen Ryzen who also caused pain to users.

 

[maxli86]

I own a Raptor lake system myself, and never suffered any of those degradation issues, but I know people who did.
An unstable undervolt is also not garanteed to end up in a BSOD, sometimes the pc just freezes and you’ve got to hard reset, or it might just run fine for months until you fire up a very specific application. I was just citing exemples where windows itself isn’t at fault. But it’s true that for parity I should have cited the RX 5700, or first gen Ryzen who also caused pain to users.
View attachment 405644

Which I had experience in my users Intel 14th i9 system.
Microsoft can revamp the BOSD since the screen has been used for more than a decade.
The thing is does user know how to read and understand what exactly is the BOSD?

Intel 14th degradation wise like what I encounter encounter was a tricky BOSD code.
Windows log CRC error whatever program or app cannot run or open, even Windows update failed.
This BOSD is by far the most trickiest as it involve more than 1 component to troubleshoot.

In the end it was the Intel 14th CPU that has been degraded thus was the main cause of the CRC issue.
Next tricky BOSD I encounter was system thread exception not handled which I seen in faulty AMD Ryzen CPUs.
No particular models as I encounter either AMD Ryzen 5 3000/5000 series proably due to overheat thus it failed.

This error unlike CRC error, Windows can't even start or install from Windows USB installer as it
will just BOSD immediately.
These two BOSD are the trickest to identify in my experience, other more common BOSD like
bugcheck as well as kernel power are much easier to troubleshoot.

Kernal power means either the PSU has issues while bugcheck is RAM issues or Windows kernal is corrupted.
I quote from my own experience and knowledge so point here is even if MS revamp.
Will any users be like me able to understand, debug what exactly is wrong with the system?

CRC and system thread exception are two tricky BOSD which needs some effort to understand where exactly is the fault.
There are no proper tools to test CPU, despite Intel has it's own but it isn't accurate especially checking both P and E cores.
AMD ryzen there are none which I think AMD should have their own CPU checking tool.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I wonder if this finally got enough votes in the feedback hub or something.

 

[Visible Noise]

Sorry, you guys totally missed the lead with this one. No idea why you would source the Verge for this when you could source Microsoft and write about the kernel changes instead of the screen color.

The Windows Resiliency Initiative: Building resilience for a future-ready enterprise

Resilience isn’t optional—it’s a strategic imperative. In today’s threat landscape, organizations can’t afford to treat resilience as a reactive measure. It must be built into the foundation of how systems are designed, secured and managed

blogs.windows.com

Next month, we will deliver a private preview of the Windows endpoint security platform to a set of MVI partners. The new Windows capabilities will allow them to start building their solutions to run outside the Windows kernel. This means security products like anti-virus and endpoint protection solutions can run in user mode just as apps do.

This is kicking apps that belong in user space out of kernel space. I have no idea how the color of screen became the headline.

 

[wNotyarD]

This is kicking apps that belong in user space out of kernel space. I have no idea how the color of screen became the headline.

Kudos to MS if it gets us rid of kernel-level anti-cheat solutions.