To BSOD or not to BSOD? Only Microsoft knows the answer When is a bork not a bork? Perhaps when it's on a Microsoft stand at a US security conference. An eagle-eyed Register reader spotted two apparent examples of the breed at Microsoft's stand at the RSAC 2026 Conference, one showing a Blue Screen Of Death from the era of Windows 98 and another that appeared to come from the days …
The first one looks like a mock up or joke, 'cause where is the address 0xUUUUUUUU?
The seconds could be one as well...
Did the one, who took the photo, tap the screen? It might show a "This is how fake BSODS look like on the web" message or something similar... Like the article suggests: Marketing.
Likely deliberate.
I read years ago that they think the reason a lot of scam emails and texts have bad spelling and/or grammar is the people likely to spot that it's a scam are likely to notice the bad spelling or grammar, so will ignore or report it, leaving the scammer with more time to deal with those who have been fooled..
Nicely spotted. The second is at https://fakebsod.com/windows-8-and-10/. Both are set up so one can visit the page in question, hit F11, and move the mouse "under" the error message (as described on the site itself).
The wording and/or graphics of both BSODs could probably stand some tinkering by the assembled commentardiat. Anyone have ideas? (Possibly an El Reg contest, with the prize to be a BSOD jumper...)
to long suffering MS customers I would have thought grabbing a few designers from the Apple stable to produce something a bit more stylish or even classy might have been on the cards rather than the illiterate retro or steampunk look that it currently sports. Changing the background colour from blue to black is not quite the direction I had in mind.
The "sad mac" screen back when, wasn't particularly informative but a least it was cute. ;)
An ascii animation of a kitten playing with a ball of wool and titled "Sorry, I have lost my thread. Please type Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart"† at least would be more amusing and definitely more comprehensible to the polloi than the hex error codes and addresses.
Of course if you had a rock solid OS that could recover from just about every fault you wouldn''t need a BSOD but then you would not need, nor want, Microsoft tat on your hardware.
† Ctrl+Alt+Delete (SAK) for obvious reasons.
If the users found a way to bring up a picture of a kitten on screen - they would do it all the time. Dont reward failure.
That said, if I found a software/OS vendors stall at a show, with dodgy links accessible, damn straight i would hit those links.
