Many of us use MS Windows in our business. Occasionally we fall victim to the dreaded Blue Screen of Death or BSOD. Our computer is frozen, our in-process work is lost, and there’s nothing left for us but to re-boot our computer and hope for the best.

We just learned that Microsoft has a whole rainbow of screens of death. They have chosen different colors to distinguish various types of errors. This distinction helps Microsoft technicians find the problem more quickly and thus solve it, with less phone support time (and cost to Microsoft.)

There’s an interesting article on The Windows Club website that explains these screens of death in some detail. It’s a quick read and worth your time.

In the article, they observe, “There is no simple explanation why these stop errors occur as several factors can be involved.” That’s not good news, of course; we would love our computer problems to have a simple solution. But, at least the multiple colors give the technicians a place to start.

Besides Blue, there are Yellow, Brown, Red (we have seen this one on our equipment once or twice) and even Purple.

See the whole rainbow in all it frightful glory here:

Purple, Brown, Yellow, Red, Green Screen of Death explained

The Windows Club

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