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Microsoft Software Criticized for Blue Screen of Death and User Frustration

Software

Business Honor
31 March, 2025

Microsoft's Blue Screen of Death has persisted, evoking frustration, error codes, and sympathy.

Despite helping millions of people complete their tasks, Microsoft, which has been a major provider of desktop software for decades, has been the target of criticism, derision, and even hatred.

The Blue Screen of Death, or BSOD, has been a feature of Windows from its early iterations, though it is thankfully much less common now. It appears when Microsoft's operating system detects a catastrophic problem in a program or when the application stops working.

The most typical image is a whole blue screen with white writing alerting users to the issue. This was initially created by Steve Ballmer, who eventually became the company's CEO. Error codes are included in some screen versions to assist power users in determining what went wrong.

In an apparent attempt to show sympathy, a sad-face smiley has been added to Windows in more recent versions. Many customers have discovered that the only way to get out of it is to manually turn the computer off and on again, even though it has frequently provided the option to continue working by shutting down the software or restarting the computer.

The popular and incredibly detailed "Flight Simulator" game series from Microsoft features recreations of actual places and planes. However, Excel 97 has a number of hidden inputs that allowed office workers without a joystick or a high-end graphics card to fly about a strange neon-tinged mountainous landscape with just their mouse. The scene is one of scores of secret "Easter eggs" that have been strewn throughout the company's software over the years, along with the spreadsheet program's credits.