BetaWiki:Featured article/2022-05

A blue screen of death is a common name for the screen that occurs during a system crash in Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is shown when the operating system can no longer function safely due to a fatal system error.

Contrary to popular belief, Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.x did not have the blue screen. Rather, it was first introduced as a full-screen modal dialog for displaying important system messages in Windows 3.0, which suspended Windows until being dismissed by the user. The modal interface would be used for the task manager in Windows 3.1x and to report severe system errors in Windows 95 and later, the latter of which earned its blue screen of death nickname.

On Windows NT, blue screens are also commonly known as STOP errors, referring to the  label that introduced the error code up to Windows 7. According to John Vert, the developer who originally wrote the code in the NT kernel that was responsible for controlling the screen in text mode, the white-on-blue color was chosen in order to match the MIPS' firmware display, as well as the default color scheme of the SlickEdit text editor many NT developers used at the time. The first known build to implement the Windows NT blue screen is the October 1991 build, and would eventually evolve during Windows 8's development to be replaced to a simplified message with a sad emoticon.