If the 33-year-old’s decision had gone the other way, Windows’ blue screen of death could have looked very different

Over the years, the infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) has graced Windows with its worst moments—those moments when your PC completely gives up. This error screen is reserved for fatal errors that prevent Windows from functioning normally. The operating system displays details of the process that caused the fatal crash and restarts itself to prevent damage to data and hardware.

Interestingly, the Windows BSOD didn’t have to be blue. The choice goes back to Microsoft engineers working on Windows NT, who chose the color because it was familiar, not because it meant anything important. The choice remained for decades until Microsoft replaced blue with black in 2024, ending the three-decade legacy of the blue screen of death.

Blue is born from convenience

Microsoft just winged it

The Blue Screen of Death, as we know it, dates back to the early 90s with the development of Windows NT 3.1. Microsoft developer John Werth worked on the NT kernel code to show the stop screen by switching the display to text mode and adding an error message to it. It chose the blue-and-white design of the BSOD that shipped with Windows NT 3.1 in 1993.

The reason for the choice was more than practical. The MIPS workstation he worked on used a blue-and-white color scheme for the firmware boot screen. In addition, the SlickEdit text editor used by many Windows NT developers at the time had the same default color scheme. He simply used the same design for the new Windows stop screen so that it was consistent and easy to read.

If the Vert workstation had used a different default color scheme, the BSOD as we know it would never have been blue. There were no brand guidelines or technical limitations behind the blue screen. It can be black, like the cracked screen of Windows 3.1, or green, as seen in today’s Windows Insider Preview builds.

Windows NT was not the first version to have a blue screen

But this was the first one with a true BSOD

Interestingly, pre-NT versions of Windows also had blue screens, but they weren’t technically stop screens or “screens of death”. In Windows 3.1, click Ctrl + Alt + Del a screen appears that allows you to close the program that is stuck on the keyboard. It was written by Steve Ballmer, and Microsoft engineer Raymond Chen called it “the blue screen of misery”.

A few years later, the Windows 95 error screen that Chen worked on also showed white text on a blue background. This allowed the user to ignore the error and continue using the computer or restart the system. Later versions such as Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and 7 began to provide additional information about the BSOD to give users an idea of ​​what is wrong with the system.

Then Windows 8 BSOD updated its terminal-style, text-only appearance, giving users a different shade of blue, a modern font, and a big sad smiley. It also removed any additional information about the error, leaving people guessing. Back then, BSODs weren’t that common, and Windows 10 continued that look, but it added a QR code that users could scan for more information.

The BSOD hasn’t been out of the blue for a while

Black is the new blue

Unfortunately, thanks to Microsoft’s change to Windows 11 24H2 in 2024, the “B” in BSOD no longer means “blue”. To be exact, it’s now a black screen of death. While Microsoft attempted the same transition in 2021 with a sad face and a QR code, it quickly returned to the familiar blue screen.

However, with the 24H2 update, the company has committed to adopting a new BSOD to bring it in line with other modern Windows design choices. He cited a simplified interface as the motivation for the switch. Gone is the QR code and the sad page, the text simplified to “Your device has encountered a problem and needs to be restarted.” The error code remains at the bottom, along with the progress counter above it.

It seems that many users don’t like the “switch to black”. It looks more like a Windows update screen than an error screen. It’s hard to say because it’s been two years, but it’s worth noting that the blue screen of death isn’t just a visual choice. It’s become synonymous with when your computer encounters an intractable error and a black screen just doesn’t feel right.

Nobody wants to see a BSOD, but blue is still better than black

Microsoft wanted to simplify the stop screen and changed it from blue to black. However, I think the black screen of death is much scarier than it used to be. The blue theme was relatively calm and didn’t feel as intimidating as the black screen now. The old BSOD didn’t look like the Windows Update screen either, so there’s that.