Mood Color Is Black: Microsoft Changes Windows 'Screen of Death' Color

Microsoft has officially confirmed rumors about a redesign of the BSOD, the “screen of death” that appears on the display during critical failures of different versions of Windows. Soon it will no longer be blue - however, its abbreviation will not change at all.

According to Microsoft representatives, the once blue “emergency” background will become black, but the phenomenon itself will be called by the old name, because in English both colors begin with the same letter (blue screen of death and black screen of death). The new design will also remove the sad smiley, but more detailed information about the error will appear: the error code and the name of the system file that caused the problem.

“This is really an attempt to bring clarity and provide better information that will allow us and our customers to understand the essence of the problem so that we can fix it faster ... Part of it is just clearer information about what exactly went wrong, where it happened - in Windows or in components,” said Microsoft vice president of enterprise systems and OS security David Weston.

The new BSOD design will be coming to Windows 11 "later this summer" along with a new recovery feature called Quick Machine Recovery. A page for setting it up has already appeared in the Insider Preview branch of the OS.