Microsoft's Blue Screen of Death Is Changing To Black In Windows 11 (theverge.com) 89
Microsoft is changing its famous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) to black in Windows 11. The Verge reports: The software giant started testing its new design changes in a Windows 11 preview earlier this week, but the Black Screen of Death isn't fully enabled yet. The Verge understands Microsoft will be switching to a Black Screen of Death for Windows 11, matching the new black logon and shutdown screens. It's the first major change to the BSOD since Microsoft added a sad face to the screen in Windows 8 in 2012, and QR codes in 2016. Microsoft first introduced the BSOD in Windows 3.0, offering a way for IT professionals and support personnel to diagnose hardware and memory faults. A BSOD is Windows' own kernel error or bug check, and it usually includes a dump of data that can help system administrators analyze what system fault caused the blue screen. While Microsoft is switching to a Black Screen of Death in Windows 11, the screen is identical to the one found in Windows 10 otherwise. The sad face remains, as does the stop code and crash dump. The current preview of Windows 11 includes a green BSOD, a color that Microsoft has been using for Windows Insider builds since 2016.
Primitive compared to the Amiga (Score:4)
Most artistic... (Score:2)
Most artistic...black and blue period for Windows.
JoshK.
Rename: Black Panic (Score:4, Funny)
The screen turned black! Panic!
Somehow I don't see this changing people at Microsoft thinking black screens matter.
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They're returning to the classics. For now, they changed only the background but not the design yet -- it will be all-black with a blinking cursor in the corner.
Re:Rename: Black Panic (Score:5, Funny)
With apologies to Mick Jagger:
But then he did lend "start me up" to windows 95 so mabey this is just payback.
Paint it Black - Windows 11 edition:
[Verse 1]
I see a blue screen and I want it painted black
No colours anymore, I want them to turn black
I see the geeks walk by working on their linux clones
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes
[Verse 2]
I see a line of code and they're all painted black
With flowers and my work, both never to come back
I see people turn their heads and quickly look away
Like a new zero day exploit, it just happens every day
[Verse 3]
I look inside myself and see my heart is black
I see my blue screen, I must have it painted black
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More change the sake of change ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Great to see Microsoft "innovating" on "solutions" to a problem that literally no one asked.
Random Win10 user: You know what I would REALLY like to see in Windows 11? ... a BLACK screen of death! How cool would that be!
Clueless MS UX employee: What?
Random Win10 user: Picture this
Clueless MS UX employee: Sure! I'll get a team right on it.
Said NO ONE.
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If they truly innovated by using the color Daffodil then we could make Marquis DSOD jokes about using Windows.
But they didn't. Sigh.
Re:More change the sake of change ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If they were creative, they would make it crash to a micro OS terminal with that data displayed, so you can do stuff, like check hardware states et al. You would think one could be built into the CPU or motherboard. Why is BIOS so limited.
Re:More change the sake of change ... (Score:5, Interesting)
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The current solution is to dump that to a file that can be examined later. Developers can enable a complete memory dump too, but it's not done by default for security reasons.
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Add a DAF Daffodil [wikipedia.org] image to it and I'm in.
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Well, the blue is kinda harsh on the eyes. A pleasant slate gray would be nice, with just a hint of texture?
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If the goal is to be soft on the eyes, then it should be a dark green, or amber, or a cute nekomimi girl.
Re:More change the sake of... abstraction... ? (Score:1)
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That will be in Version 2.0 where a user can customize the color. /s
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May as well put in systemd
Still got ... (Score:2)
a few more to go - https://colorful.fandom.com/wi... [fandom.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you assume that the reason is for you or the consumer? MS has used custom colours to identify different BSOD in different windows releases since Windows 8, it makes it nice and easy to identify which version of windows someone is running when they post the "rage headline du jour" on the internet.
Not everything is about you.
Welcome on the DARK SIDE (Score:2)
Welcome on the DARK SIDE ...
Re: (Score:1)
Soon they will have an option in themes or some other location where you can set your own colours.
That will please everyone who wants whatever colours. /s
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Well, they obviously run out of visible things to change in a positive way. So they do meaningless visual changes. You know, instead of actually fixing all the things that are wrong with Windows.
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They're just reminding you that the BSOD is indeed innovation. Just remember that Macs and Linux machines don't even bother to try to have any sort of screen of death. Nope, on those systems, you're either tediously kept working by an OS that doesn't just give up on you, or else you're quickly rebooted back to working again, rather than given some useless information no one on the planet understands, much less wants to copy down to report to Microsoft - who will of course, do absolutely nothing with it anyw
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Ya, Microsoft should have saved the 30 seconds it took their programmer to make the change in color value and put that time towards something more useful.
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And file a ticket, implement the change, test the change, update the ticket, have QA test it, have QA sign off on it.
It takes WAY more then "just 30 seconds".
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By implication, they're also going to interpret that we'd like to see that screen MORE.
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Fork Bomb (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] may generate Black Screen of Death
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I don't care what you say (Score:2)
BSODs are rare since Win 7 (Score:2)
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I think that say more about Windows, its drivers handling and the Kyocera printers drivers themselves.
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Me too. Instead I get free reboots with no blue screen.
That's still better though. Especially don't save a crash dump. I give zero fucks.
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No longer 'blue screen' of death (Score:2)
Internal communications refer to them as something-something of death.
Software Demand (Score:2)
You're lucky if it ever get that far .. (Score:1)
Thatâ(TM)s it, Iâ(TM)m switching back to (Score:1)
Just for this.
BSOD is dead, long live the BSOD (Score:2)
Black screen of death is still a BSOD.
Thank god they kept the acronym. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm, what other color could MS use and still keep the initials? Got it!
Brown Screen Of Death: Windows has shit its pants.
Designers know this (Score:2)
It's important to keep current and update carefully the elements of the interface that are seen frequently.
You mean, changing *back* (Score:2)
Thank goodness (Score:2)
People won't have to change the informal acronym for it at least.
racist! (Score:1)
This nelongs in the category of: (Score:3)
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Every release mid-cycle (Score:4, Insightful)
About mid-cycle of every major Windows release Microsoft announces that the blue crash screen will be switching to black. Somehow it has ends up back at blue every time, so I'm putting my money on the B(lue)SOD in Windows 11 as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Can you point to a reference to that? MS has announced many changes to BSODs and followed through on them all. People who claim that these changes don't make it through often don't realise that they don't show up in all circumstances.
E.g. Vista's Black Screen of Death is a real thing. MS actually implemented that. It replaced the Red Screen of Death. Did you ever see a RSOD on Vista? Me neither, because unlike the BSoD it only came up for a very specific system / boot related error. None the less MS did ann
Make it lilac - then it's an LSD (Score:2)
They should make it lilac - then it'd be an LSD
Why? (Score:2)
If they're going to make errors more inconspicuous, why don't they just make it never display anything?
Just let the machine lock up without notifying the user, and people won't know whether to reset or wait.
But hey, at least their OS won't get mocked on Reddit when people see a POS terminal or Jumbotron with a BSOD.
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Probably too young to remember but the total lockup feature was indeed innovated way back into Windows 3.1. If you made it past that and to the BSOD screen then, congrats, you won.
(Yeah I know, also remember doing plenty of stupid pointer mistakes that weren't the OS's fault so sue me)
Collateral damage (Score:2)
Advertising synergy (Score:5, Funny)
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Or "Back in Black"?
At least ! (Score:2)
A much awaited move...
The Black Screen of Death (Score:5, Funny)
That's pretty close to "The Black Death." Let me Google that to make sure there aren't any bad connotations [wikipedia.org] ...
Hmm... nope, seems about right.
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That's what I thought. "Black death" = plague, so it pretty much confirms what I think about Windows.
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And if you’re suffering from a lot of black screens of death and go searching for plural “black deaths”, you definitely won’t find any difficult issues associated with that phrase. /s
Seems like a good idea. Ship it!
This is well worthy of a new article (Score:2)
Who cares... (Score:2)
...what color it is. It's still absolutely fucking useless for the average joe and even most IT professionals.
How about a screen with useful messages instead of cryptic garbage?
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What's not crystal clear about IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL?
The IRQL is not less or equal. Do I need to spell it out? What's cryptic about it? There's the IRQL and it's not less or equal. Says it right there. In plain old English.
That's the last straw! (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe THIS will be the thing that drives people away from Windows, ushering in the year of the Linux desktop!
Re: (Score:1)
My year of Linux was 2011. I come here for schadenfreude.
QR (Score:2)
But i think there's no way to get something like that to display on a text screen you'd need graphics mode and that comes with whole mother lode of complications for a system that runs on anything from a glorified microcontroller to a mainframe.
Re: QR (Score:1)
Linux has far more advanced features already.
See my comment below.
A behind the screens (the reason behind it) (Score:2)
Some clueless C-Level: I will only say it once: NO MORE Blue Screens of Death! No user will ever experience one in our new Windows 11! Make it so!
Dev head: Ok boss.
So many Puns... (Score:2)
"I know Dark Mode is cool and all, but this is getting ridiculous."
"Black, Microsoft? You mean like your soul?"
"Fitting. Goes well with that dark hole you pull excuses out of to justify Telemetry OS."
Definitely not "news for nerds". (Score:2)
I'm a Unix guy, and even *I* know you can change the color scheme in a BSOD by setting the MessageBackColor and MessageTextColor keys in the %SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM.INI file to whatever EGA color numbers [wikipedia.org] you prefer.
It goes to 11! (Score:1)
It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.
still BSOD (Score:1)
They will let you know (Score:2)
By showing it at least twice a day.
Does Windows log such errors? (Score:2)
I hope nobody as to take photos of their screen in 2021, do they?
Like writing to a specific area on the disk, or a reserved memory area in the BIOS, or outputting it over some serial terminal (e.g. sending an Ethernet/wifi/USB packet). Depending on what parts still work, or using separate custom code that is guaranteed to work even with a broken kernel.
Linux does all of those already, if enabled. Plus the "magic" SysRq key for a safe shutdown with minimized data loss.
Any Windows admin here?
master/slave, whitelist, blacklist, ... (Score:2)
Black Screen of Death. Social media's scandal in 1,2,3..
Idiotic choice of color (Score:1)
Energy saver (Score:2)
Now that's Innovation! (Score:2)
This is important it saves battery life (Score:1)
Rolling stones? (Score:2)