Wave goodbye to the Windows “blue screen of death”. Much like Clippy and Windows Phone before it, the much-hated error screen is about to be consigned to tech history, with Microsoft announcing the decision last month, in a catchily titled blog post “The Windows Resiliency Initiative: Building resilience for a future-ready enterprise”.
It is the end of an era. Everyone has a horror story about Microsoft’s error screen appearing at the worst possibly moment, taking hours of work with it. I don’t remember the first time I saw Microsoft’s blue screen of death on my computer. But I do remember the worst time.
Back in college, when I was working on my thesis, I lost a good chunk of a critical chapter when the machine had a critical error and crashed, taking my work with it. I’d like to say it was my best work, but we will never know. With a deadline looming, I had to spend several more hours piecing it back together.
Yes, I should have been saving as I went. I realised that as soon as the screen flashed up, but hindsight is 20/20. It served as one of those important lessons we learn after the fact, alongside daily backups for your phone and why you should turn on “Find My” for your important devices, after you lose them. After that, auto save was set to the shortest possible interval. We live and learn.
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But Microsoft’s error screen is a well-known spectre in the tech world, and has been for more than 30 years. Caused by hardware errors, driver conflicts, overheating components – anything your system didn’t like – the error screen was an ever present threat.
The blue error messages have been around since the early days of Windows in the 1980s, when they more “mild annoyance” than “death”. But the screens we have become so familiar with were introduced to Windows in the early 1990s, as part of Windows NT 3.1.
At some point, it picked up the “blue Screen of death” nickname. And since then it has been annoying the hell out of people just trying to get on with their day.
The blue screen of death evolved over the years from a list of code and errors to include a brief explanation of the problem and eventually a QR code and a frowny face, which felt suspiciously like it was mocking me. “Lost your work? What did you do? Sad for you.”
It has been a while since it has reared its ugly head, on my machine at least. Maybe it was the advent of the always-on internet connection and auto updates for software. Maybe it was that companies got a bit more of a handle of more critical bugs and flaws in their software. Either way, critical errors are more of an exception than I remember.
[ We are gradually becoming inured to technological messesOpens in new window ]
For most of us, the blue screen of death is a small annoyance that can be fixed with a reboot or a software update. But when the CrowdStrike bug caused an outage on Microsoft’s virtual machines a year ago, it wasn’t just a minor inconvenience. The chaos was widespread.
The cause? A faulty update from security company CrowdStrike that forced virtual machines to shut down and get stuck in a loop. It affected an estimated 8.5 million Windows computers around the world, less than 1 per cent of Microsoft’s install base. But it wasn’t about the quantity, but rather the industries that it hit. Healthcare, transport, government agencies; all were impacted by the bug.
Flights were delayed as check-in systems went down, then grounded as operations halted. The blue screen of death was seen at baggage carousels in airports, on departures boards. Doctors in the UK were left unable to access medical records in GP surgeries.
In some cases, it took weeks to fix the problem, leaving a lot of people in limbo in the meantime.
It was a wake-up call for all of us about our dependence on technology. If less than 1 per cent of Microsoft’s machines were affected, and the fallout was this chaotic, imagine if the problem has been more widespread? And what if the issue had been a malicious move rather than a simple error?
After all that chaos, you imagine that even a hint of a blue screen would trigger a visceral reaction in some people, not least among Microsoft executives.
[ CrowdStrike tech outage: How can we stop the next catastrophe?Opens in new window ]
So perhaps it is sensible for Microsoft to retire it. But never fear: much like Clippy has been replaced by CoPilot, the crash screen isn’t really going away. While the blue screen is being retired, it is being replaced by a black restart screen that echoes the days of Windows 3.1.
This time it has a simplified message: Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart. Along with a code for the technically minded who need it, and a progress indicator for the rest of us who just want to get on with our work.
So goodbye, blue screen of death. I can’t say I’ll miss you.
