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BSOD stands for Blue Screen of Death. It is a full-screen error message generated on Windows systems when the operating system encounters a kernel or driver issue from which it cannot recover.

BSOD stands for Blue Screen of Death. It is a full-screen error message generated on Windows systems when the operating system encounters a kernel or driver issue from which it cannot recover.

Upon receiving a BSOD, the user has no choice but to restart the computer.

In Windows 8, the blue screen of death is no longer exactly blue, and is more "user-friendly" than in previous Windows versions.

Windows 8 BSOD example

From Windows 2000 through Windows 7/Server 2008 R2, the blue screen of death was a blue screen with detailed error data, which users often found confusing.

Windows BSOD example