Farewell, Famous 'Blue Screen of Death'

Anyone who has worked with Windows long enough has surely encountered it—the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. Now, the Verge reports that the famous, or infamous, error message is going away as part of the upcoming Windows 11 update. Alas, Microsoft hasn't found some magical fix that eliminates computer crashes—they're just changing the color of the screen to black, reports Tom Warren. Meaning, we'll still get hit with what's known as a BSOD, but the "B" will stand for black instead of blue.

The company has not provided an explanation (or even confirmation), but Warren suspects the switch is being put in place so the error message matches the color of the new shutdown and start screens. As Gizmodo notes, BSOD messages go back to Windows 3, and they've been tweaked along the way, most recently with the addition of a frowny face in 2012. The screens aren't just frivolity, however; the codes on them can give IT folks clues about what triggered the crash. (More Microsoft stories.)