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Everyone knows the infamous Blue Screen of Death, often referred to as BSOD, but more recently, some people have seen what it appears to be a new version of this super-frustrating error message.
The Green Screen of Death, now called GSOD, made its debut with the recently-leaked Windows 10 build 14997 and is actually an official thing, as Microsoft itself introduced it in the operating system with one important goal: to help the company distinguish production builds from insider versions.
Microsoft senior program manager for Windows Enterprise Development Platform Matthijs Hoekstra teased this change on Twitter on December 28, hinting that there’s something new in Windows 10 build 14997 that nobody reported until that point.
“Cool to read all the new features people discover in the leaked builds, but they missed a big change!, Huge change!. curious when its found,” he tweeted.
There were all kinds of answers, starting with Xbox and ending with Project Astoria, but because nobody was even close to the new GSOD, Matthijs posted a hint later the same day to reveal that this new thing was “green.”
Only for insider builds
@Chris123NT was the one to finally discover it, posting a screenshot with the new Green Screen of Death, which looks exactly the same as its blue sibling, obviously with the color difference.
Matthijs explained that this GSOD was created specifically for insider builds in order to help the Windows team distinguish error reports from production builds, which continue to feature a Blue Screen of Death (which you shouldn’t see, by the way, but sometimes things go wrong).
As for the reason this new error message is green, nobody knows for sure how come Microsoft picked green and not a different color, with Matthijs tweeting that not even him has an idea why this choice.
The same GSOD is very likely to be part of the upcoming public insider builds coming in January, so don’t be too surprised if you see it. It’s a real thing now.