After nearly four decades, Microsoft is retiring the famous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) that has long signaled serious system crashes on Windows. The company confirmed that Windows 11 will soon replace it with a redesigned Black Screen of Death, aimed at making error messages clearer and more helpful.
The updated black screen resembles the one users typically see during Windows updates but adds more detailed crash information. It will now display the stop code and faulty driver directly, saving IT teams from digging through crash dumps with tools like WinDbg just to diagnose the problem.
“This is about providing clearer details so both Microsoft and users can quickly identify the root cause and resolve it faster,” explained David Weston, Microsoft’s VP of enterprise and OS security, in a statement to The Verge.
The Black Screen of Death and the new Quick Machine Recovery feature, which restores unbootable systems, will be introduced in a Windows 11 update scheduled for later this summer. These improvements come as part of Microsoft’s broader push to enhance Windows’ stability, following last year’s CrowdStrike outage that left millions of machines stuck on a BSOD screen.