Blue Screen of Death Lives On in Windows 8
Blue Screen of Death Lives On in Windows 8
Posted 09/14/2011 at 11:04am
| by Paul Lilly
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Good news for the haters, when Microsoft said it reimagined Windows, it also reimagined what the Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) should look like, which means Windows 8 isn't immune to crashing. If you think about it, it's kind of comforting in a way. After all, what would Windows be without a BSoD revealing what went wrong? You could answer "Linux," or even "Mac OS X" if you're trying to start a flame war, but we won't go there.
As much as we all hate getting a BSoD, they're actually pretty helpful if you know how to decipher them. They're also a little intimidating, despite the use of the color blue, which studies show have a relaxing effect on people. It appears Microsoft wants them to be even less frightening in Windows 8.
Pocket-Lint.com posted a screenshot of what it says is the new BSoD for Windows 8. There's a giant frownie face emoticon in the upper left, followed a message that reads: "Your PC ran into a problem that it couldn't handle, and now it needs to restart."
The type of error is displayed -- for example, SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION -- followed by a countdown clock, at the end of which Windows 8 will restart.
What do you think of the new BSoD? Do you find it to be better or worse than previous versions, or are you indifferent?
Image Credit: pocket-lint.com
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aso chudi
January 17, 2012 at 2:22am
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January 04, 2012 at 12:39pm
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Michael Ellis
September 15, 2011 at 5:50pm
Haha....I got this message....HAL Initialization Error....that's what you get for using Virtual PC with a Windows product.........wait a minute......
LatiosXT
September 15, 2011 at 8:15am
"You can search for the error online: [error]"
Thank you Microsoft. You finally shown people step one in diagnosing a BSOD. And as much as ambiguous errors names are an issue, the problem is that errors can be caused by multiple symptoms (only one needs to trigger it), and even the same symptom can cause multiple issues.
This is much better than Mac OS X's implementation, which is "Your computer has crashed, time to restart!". And if there is a hardware issue, well, you'd have to dig through the logs to find that.
pastorbob
September 15, 2011 at 4:51am
I can honestly say that I have never got the BSOD on WIndows 7 in the two years I have used it. And it's been several years since I have seen it on my only remaning XP machine.
Cykotr0n.
September 14, 2011 at 11:55pm
Would be nice if instead of an error code they gave out a simpler and more user friendly way of telling us where it hit a wall. Like "Oops! One of the CPU clocks stopped reporting." or "It seems your GPU Returned some errors.". We need something better than an ambiguous Error line or line of error code to tell us where it hurts so we can mend it.
eday_2010
September 14, 2011 at 8:52pm
Most of the blue screens of death I have ever gotten was a result of a problem with nVidia's drivers for one of their graphics cards.
Link11
September 14, 2011 at 7:23pm
BSoD never frightend me. its just a message saying that your computer isnt working the way it should be and that it needs to be fixed
warptek2010
September 14, 2011 at 10:43pm
They never frightened me either, just made me mad. Though you think the blue screen could actually offer some useful information that a lay person could decipher and know almost right away what is wrong? No, you have to dig through memory address mappings to find the culprit.
Scatter
September 14, 2011 at 5:18pm
A BSoD is really just a crash. Is it really that surprising that an operating system that runs an almost infinite combination of hardware and software combinations may at some point run into a combination that wasn't expected? Its the price that we sometimes have to pay to be able to run out and purchase any motherboard, video card, sound card, cam, wireless device, etc... that we want and then run almost any type of program that we'd want.
Besides, just because it exists doesn't mean that its a problem. My Windows 7 PC hasn't blue screened on me once yet.
/knocks on wood :)
j_j_montez
September 14, 2011 at 5:57pm
Agreed. I never liked the BSoD nick name. It makes people panic more than they need to. It is amazing that we can throw nearly any configuration together, pop in the install disc, and it will work. (maybe install some extra drivers) I give props when it's due to Microsoft. Without them, compared to what else is out there, we would not have sub $500 computers that anybody could use. The Crash screen doesn't scare me.
thetechchild
September 14, 2011 at 6:51pm
Well, I won't downplay the fact that Microsoft has made great contributions to the computing community. However, Linux and other organizations have made just as important ones, making most of Microsoft's rather redundant. Plus, I find it equally amazing that decades after the beginning of the PC/Internet revolution, we still don't have good, open standards that support ALL configurations -- it's not that hard, it's a matter of intellectual property that is somehow proprietary. Is it really that hard to make an API that all hardware makers conform to or at least support?
zeroibis
September 14, 2011 at 5:03pm
There needs to be like a nuke going off or something with a sign that says catastrophic error, your system died due to error code: xxxx
This would help users better understand how important the information on the screen is.
AKShockwave
September 14, 2011 at 4:27pm
I didn't even think windows machines past xp still got bsod.
Gezzer
September 14, 2011 at 3:53pm
I'm all for making the BSoD less alarming, but an emoticon? I had to check the date at first, no April's fool, so someone actually thinks this is a good idea? It undermines the potential seriousness of the situation. A BSoD is a major fault and even though the fix can be easy it can also be something really wrong with the system and shouldn't be trivalized.
RUSENSITIVESWEETNESS
September 14, 2011 at 2:57pm
Windows 8 looks like another OS for novices, kinda up-in-your-face with "all the things that are important to you!" This is Microsoft trying to beat Facebook in the race to control mobile devices--at the expense of PCs.
Again, Microsoft trying so hard to be trendy, and forgetting about their bread-and-butter revenue source.
someuid
September 14, 2011 at 2:35pm
I think Microsoft should change the name from Windows 8 to Windows Pixie Dust. Between this and the charms in the Metro UI, this OS seems designed more for happy advertising and feel good commercials than for actual work.
Nimrod
September 14, 2011 at 1:17pm
It could be worse. A paper clip with a chat bouble telling you "Opps, it looks like your computer is trying to crash, let me help."
winmaster
September 15, 2011 at 9:09pm
Not to mention the paper clip speaks and is voiced by Gilbert Godfreed.
warptek2010
September 14, 2011 at 10:47pm
hehe, yeah, it could'a also been Son of Microsoft Bob. Bob has a son, and look... he's wearing a pretty ribbon!
Blues22475
September 14, 2011 at 12:15pm
This could be a bad thing for techs who actually had to troubleshoot BSODing computers. Believe it or not, that chain of numbers and letters was helpful in finding out why the machine decided to BSOD.
DasHellMutt
September 14, 2011 at 3:36pm
I agree it would be bad if they don't give the actual error message somewhere on that screen. But did you catch that part where it counts down before the reboot?!?!? Why the hell didn't they do that sooner?
I have done several format/reinstalls without ever being able to actually troubleshoot the issue because the customer had the default option to automatically reboot which prevents you from ever being able to read the BSOD. They've just come up with a simple, elegant fix for a very frustrating problem. I'm excited! It sounds like they're actually thinking these things through.
grexxman
September 14, 2011 at 12:39pm
Having diagnosed numerous BSODs using the hex codes I agree. But I hope they've replaced the hex codes with some meaningful errors that will save us techs from having to google it or recall it from memory.
grexxman
September 14, 2011 at 11:45am
The new BSOD seems to be pretty much the same as is predicesor minus the smooth text and emoticons. I did laugh the first time I tried to boot to the CD while installing it on my VirtualBox machine. It gave me an error saying "You can search for the error online: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (storachi.sys)" which lead me to change my virtual hard drive from a SATA Controller in AHCI mode to an IDE Controller resolving the issue. I hope not to see too many of these new BSOD's but hopefully if I do, they provide some of these helpful errors. I'm glad to see them add a sense of humor with the emoticon. Makes me feel bad for my computer making me less inclined to smash into it with my stapler.
TommM
September 14, 2011 at 11:26am
You're kidding. A sad smiley face? Don't they remember how bad they failed by trying to be cute with that off-the-charts annoying Clippit?
Just give us the dang info, wouldja?
noobstix
September 14, 2011 at 11:17am
After getting my last BSOD over 2 years ago (Super Anti-Spyware + Windows 7 Beta = BAD), I think I got used to the old-school DOS-like BSOD. However, if this makes any sort of message about a "Physical Memory Dump" less disturbing, I'd be all for it.
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