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Microsoft's 'blue screen of death' has died at 40
Microsoft announced the end of its infamous "blue screen of death" in favor of a simple black screen and error code that better enable system recovery after a crash. Photo by Hannibal Hanschke/EPA-EFE
June 28 (UPI) -- The infamous "blue screen of death," which featured a text frown and terrified those who experienced it, no longer exists after Microsoft killed it in favor of a simple black screen and error code.
The blue screen has been in use since Windows 1.0 was made available in 1985, but it will be replaced by the new black screen without the frown with the Microsoft 11, version 24H2 systems starting this summer, CNET reported.
Microsoft used the blue screen to indicate system failures and the need to restart the computer, which often meant a loss of data and time wasted on work that might not have been saved.
The new black screen is a "simplified UI for unexpected restarts" and part of Microsoft's new resiliency program for the Windows operating system.
The black screen is designed to make it much easier and faster to fix problems by providing a stop code and identifying the relevant system driver.
Microsoft says it could reduce system recovery time to as little as 2 seconds following a computer crash.
The tech giant announced the change on Thursday, which addresses concerns raised following the global CrowdStrike outage that affected more than 8 million computers due an undetected error last year on July 19.
The outage affected 911 services, airline travel, television and public infrastructure.
