14 DAY TRIAL // One thing that users are bound not to miss in Windows 8 is the old text console screen on a blue background which their computer displayed when Windows crashed.
Make no mistake about it, the Blue Screen of Death is still present in the next iteration of Windows, but the promise from Microsoft is that customers will see it extremely rarely, and that when they do, it’s going to be an entirely new experience.
Check out the image on the left to get a taste of the new Windows 8 BSOD, and I do realize that the next-generation Blue Screen of Death has already been unearthed in the successor of Windows 7 prior to the software giant releasing Build 8102 Milestone 3 (M3) Developer Preview at BUILD last week.
However, following BUILD, it’s clear that the reimagining process of Windows covers all aspects of the operating system, including the BSOD.
“We did a thorough inventory of all capabilities of the system and thought of how everything should feel like part of the overall Windows PC experience,” revealed Billie Sue Chafins, senior program manager lead, Windows User Experience Team. “Nothing escaped our inventory, not even the dreaded “BSOD”!”
“Unfortunately, things may go wrong with hardware from time to time, so there was no way to completely rid the world of the “BSOD”.”
The new Windows 8 BSOD has been revamped to be more user friendly, although I doubt the fact that customers would appreciate the overhaul to its full value in scenarios in which their PC has crashed.
I must underline that just as is the case for Windows 8, the next-gen BSOD is also still a work in progress, and that the variant available at this point in time might not coincide with the Blue Screen of Death in the final release of the platform.
“This was a very interesting balancing act as we worked through several design iterations to determine how much information to display. We wanted to meet the needs of power users (whether you’re troubleshooting your machine or a family member’s) and at the same time, make it less scary for the consumer. One thing you’ll notice is that in spite of all the changes, we did decide to keep it blue!” Chafins added.
Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 Milestone 3 (M3) is available for download here.
