Blue Screen of Death

(humour)

(BSOD) The infamous white-on-blue text screen which appears when Microsoft Windows crashes. BSOD is mostly seen on the 16-bit systems such as Windows 3.1, but also on Windows 95 and apparently even under Windows NT 4. It is most likely to be caused by a GPF, although Windows 95 can do it if you've removed a required CD-ROM from the drive. It is often impossible to recover cleanly from a BSOD.

The acronym BSOD is sometimes used as a verb, e.g. "Windoze just keeps BSODing on me today".

This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)

Blue Screen of Death

A crash in Windows that causes the computer to lock up, and the screen turns entirely blue. The solution is to reboot. See Black Screen of Death and Red Ring of Death.

Copyright © 1981-2025 by The Computer Language Company Inc. All Rights reserved. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher.

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

O-rings on the Shuttle; the inevitable blue screen of death on your computer; even human beings--everything fails.

The Roger principle

Moving to Linux; kiss the blue screen of death goodbye, 2d ed.

Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye, 2d ed. (CD-ROM included)

[degrees] Rowdy relatives - A man suddenly found his laptop would only boot up to the 'blue screen of death'.

Data disasters

Computers might be a panacea for people, like me, who have no real friends, and find it much easier to strike up a relationship with coloured pixels jumbled up in provocative poses; but for those doing mission critical work, the computer's still-too-frequent predilection for waiting for you to forget to back up your hard work, and then giving you the blue screen of death, is a cause of great stress and sleeplessness.

ear buzz: Your country needs you!

Every Windows PC user must have encountered the "blue screen of death" at some point.

REVIEW: Moving to Linux; Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!

Maybe that was why I later got a Blue Screen of Death when I tried to leave the site.

Sutherland Lyall munches his way through the heavy and spicy mid-winter diet

The blue screen of death that characterised Windows95 and previous Microsoft attempts at an OS, was a rare visitor.

e-business: Remembering good times and bad as Windows98 closes for good

On a PC, the "blue screen of death" may appear more often.

carol@mirror.co.uk: Splat that virus