Microsoft Windows Blue screen of death (BSOD)
Have you ever experienced your computer Window screen turning blue suddenly while operating, fret not. Let’s have a technical glimpse of what is the blue screen of death.
When your Windows screen displays a blue screen with an intangible number of codes, it is called a Blue Screen of Death.
Understanding the BSOD:
The BSOD could also be called a stop screen error, a blue screen error, a fatal error, or a bug check. BSOD is an error screen that the Microsoft Windows operating system can display.
The BSOD is a warning that occurs when your computer interrupts operation and displays the warning on a blue screen. Therefore, it is also called “stop error”.
The BSOD is a full system failure at the Windows Kernel level that could occur due to an issue with Windows drivers and/or hardware.
The BSOD signals that a severe malfunction has occurred, and the system needs to reboot. Before rebooting Windows saves a “mini dump” file on your computer carrying data about the error.
Appearance of BSOD:
BSOD has been designed as an error handler for the system where the Windows operating system could not recover on its own. In that case, the BSOD forces the system to shut down to prevent fatal hardware failure.
Ever since the release of Windows NT 3.1 in 1993, the BSOD has been a part of it and was designed as a kernel error handler for Windows OS.
Evolution of BDOS:
In Windows 7, the BSOD usually shows a series of hardware information that is useless to users.
The blue screen has evolved from time to time, initially for many years the BSOD displays a long series of intelligible or unintelligible text.
Though the blue screen with white text has been the same. Microsoft has modified the BSOD design and the information it displays into a much friendlier version.
With eventual updates like Windows 8, the BSOD became a little friendlier by displaying a simple message and sad emoticon with a QR code so that the user could be able to scan and look up the information for the cause of the blue screen with their smart devices.
The BSOD is mostly black for Windows 11 except for the blue QR code though the message is the same.
Risk of BSOD:
The major risk of BSOD to a user is that it comes with no warning at all. All unsaved files of the user will be lost.
The system could not be recovered until the user resolves the underlying problem responsible for the BSOD.