After nearly 40 years, Microsoft is retiring the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) in favor of a new crash screen in an upcoming Windows 11 update planned for later this summer.
Though Windows computers will continue to experience crashes, the classic blue error screen will be replaced by a black screen displaying a brief message prompting users to restart. This pared-down design excludes the frowny face and QR code previously seen on the BSOD.
The new black crash screen resembles the black screen shown during Windows updates but includes the stop code and system driver responsible for the crash. This additional information aims to assist IT administrators in diagnosing issues more efficiently.
“This is really an attempt on clarity and providing better information and allowing us and customers to really get to what the core of the issue is so we can fix it faster,” said David Weston, Microsoft’s vice president of enterprise and OS security, in an interview with The Verge. “Part of it is just cleaner information on what exactly went wrong.”
The black screen will launch alongside the Quick Machine Recovery feature, which helps restore devices that fail to boot. These updates follow last year’s CrowdStrike incident, which caused crashes on over 8 million Windows devices, affecting banks, airlines, and major corporations worldwide.