Windows 11's getting a new 'tear your hair out' screen, with redesigned BSOD now in testing

What could be a Black Screen of Death (based on previous clues) is now in testing, a more streamlined way of letting you know that your PC has crashed.

Windows 11's getting a new 'tear your hair out' screen, with redesigned BSOD now in testing
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Tech Reporter
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TL;DR: Microsoft is trying out a redesigned Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) in Windows 11 preview builds, featuring a minimalist interface without the frowny face or QR code. While it's a green screen crash in testing, that's always been the case in preview, and it won't be for release - we might have a black rather than blue screen, though.

Your PC crashing is not something you look forward to, but this experience will soon change in Windows 11 - arguably for the better, or maybe for the worse - as Microsoft is testing a new BSOD.

The green screen simply indicates that this is a preview build, it's not the chosen color for the finished design (Image Credit: Microsoft)
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The green screen simply indicates that this is a preview build, it's not the chosen color for the finished design (Image Credit: Microsoft)

The Blue Screen of Death is a more than familiar sight - though it's considerably rarer since Windows 10 rolled around a decade ago - but Microsoft is changing how it's implemented, albeit just in testing for now.

In the new Windows 11 preview that just debuted in the Canary channel (build 27842), Microsoft informs us that the idea is to bring in a more streamlined UI for what it calls unexpected restarts. (It's a line we've heard so many times before: 'Oh gosh, my PC has unexpectedly restarted, what a frightful bore.')

The broad idea is to simplify the experience, so the new BSOD - which is green in testing, we should note, as has always been the case - gets rid of the frowny face and QR code.

As you can see in the above screenshot, all you get is a simple message in the center of the screen, and a stop code along with a related 'what failed' snippet of info at the bottom.

Is that too minimalist? Well, possibly, but then all the extra bits like the QR code weren't really of any use, anyway.

That said, the frowny face did indicate an error quite clearly at a glance, whereas some folks might mistake the new layout for a post-update reboot, perhaps (given the completion percentage counter). So, there's a bit of potential for confusion there.

A while back, Windows Latest claimed that this redesigned BSOD was present in release versions of Windows 11 (perhaps as A/B testing), and was black rather than blue. The final color remains to be seen, though, as noted, it won't be green - that just indicates that this is a preview build.

While this was announced in the Canary channel blog post for the latest preview, it's actually rolling out across all test channels except Release Preview (meaning it's in Dev and Beta as well). That fact - and the apparent fleeting test in finished builds, add a little seasoning there - does seem to suggest this is a change that's coming sooner rather than later.

Elsewhere in this Canary build, Microsoft notes that the improved battery iconography which was recently introduced in testing - and then pulled - is now rolling out again to testers. The same is true of a tweak to the Windows Security app to display more details for Pluton TPM chips (including the manufacturer and version).