Almost every Windows user has at one time or another encountered the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).  Many people have also asked ‘what is the blue screen of death’, and ‘can the blue screen of death harm my computer’.

The Blue Screen of Death (BSOD, bluescreen, or stop error) is a common error screen displayed in Microsoft Windows, after encountering a critical system error. Bluescreen errors can be caused by poorly written device drivers, faulty memory, a corrupt Registry, or incompatible DLLs.

Bluescreens have been present in all Windows-based operating systems since Windows 3.1; OS/2 and MS-DOS suffered the Black Screen of Death, and early builds of Windows Vista displayed the Red Screen of Death after a boot loader error.

The Red Screen of Death is a nickname for the error message which existed in some beta versions of Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows Vista, however, it has since been dropped.

If you do get a blue screen of death you should always write down the errors displayed on the screen before you reboot your machine, this will give you some information on what the error exactly was. Although, sometimes the messages are very cryptic and can be difficult to debug. 

If your blue screen of death experiences start after installing new hardware and/or software there is a good chance the new stuff is at fault. Just uninstall or reinstall following the directions this time and the problem should be gone.

If the problem persists, we highly recommend that you use a third party repair program that is specifically designed for problems such as bluescreen errors. You can run the free scan below.

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