| Main Entry: | blue screen of death |
| Part of Speech: | n |
| Definition: | a bright blue screen displayed by the Microsoft Windows operating system when it cannot recover from a system error; abbreviated BSOD |
| Example: | The blue screen of death almost always means the computer has frozen and requires rebooting. |
| Usage: | computing |
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blue screen of death
and BSOD
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Blue Screen of Death humour
(BSOD) The infamous white-on-blue text screen which appears when Microsoft Windows crashes. BSOD is mostly seen on the 16-bit systems such as Windows 3.1, but also on Windows 95 and apparently even under Windows NT 4. It is most likely to be caused by a GPF, although Windows 95 can do it if you've removed a required CD-ROM from the drive. It is often impossible to recover cleanly from a BSOD.
The acronym BSOD is sometimes used as a verb, e.g. "Windoze just keeps BSODing on me today".
(1998-09-08)
