Windows' iconic blue screen of death error gets a refresh after nearly 40 years

Did you know Windows is killing off the Blue Screen of Death? That's right, the iconic Windows error screen is getting a refresh nearly 40 years after it debuted in the first version of Windows. Now, the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) will become the Black Screen of Death (BSOD).

1. Microsoft releases Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) patch related to printer issue Patch Tuesday

The change is in line with other updates Windows is making following last year's CrowdStrike outage , which affected 8.5 million Windows devices and took businesses, airports, broadcasters, and government services offline.

Following the CrowdStrike outage, Microsoft announced the Windows Resiliency Initiative, which aims to embed security features more deeply into Windows to reduce the likelihood of a crisis like the CrowdStrike outage.

The initiative is also trying to make unexpected reboots less disruptive. Windows is adding a quick recovery feature that will bring your PC back online if the reboot fails. Windows shared the new Black Screen of Death in a blog post, but didn't even acknowledge the big change it enabled. Windows just calls it a "simplified user interface," because a blue background with white text is obviously too complicated.

Why change the blue screen to black? Did the viral images of Times Square rendered useless by BSOD cause that much reputational damage?

We've known about this cobalt blue trouble alert for a long time. When the BSOD first appeared in Windows 1.0 in 1985, smoking on airplanes was legal; Germany was a separate country; HTML hadn't been invented yet; Mark Zuckerberg was a kid who probably hadn't yet grasped the concept of object permanence.

Kareem Winters

Update 28 June 2025