To make crashes 'friendlier,' Microsoft adds QR codes to Windows 10 BSOD

Windows users will no longer be forced to manually Google error messages to figure out why their computer crashed, as development builds of Windows 10 now include a QR code on the Blue Screen of Death.

The QR codes appeared in build 14316 of the Windows 10 Insider Preview, according to Ars Technica. Though it currently points to a generic help page, the QR code will presumably eventually direct users to specific Windows support articles.

Microsoft's Blue Screen of Death was long a spartan, utilitarian affair. It displayed a generic message and an often unintelligible crash code in a monospaced font.

That changed with Windows 8, when the BSOD was redesigned to add a sad emoticon and more nuanced error instructions.

Apple's modern equivalent — the OS X kernel panic screen — has always been somewhat more refined, though less helpful. Until OS X 10.8, rather than providing a reason, the kernel panic screen simply instructed users to perform a hard reset of their system; more recent revisions perform the reboot automatically.

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51 Comments

SpamSandwich 20 Years · 32917 comments

About 8 years ago

How about bring it into the modern era and just have it show a giant turd emoji instead?

5 Likes · 0 Dislikes

rob53 14 Years · 3345 comments

About 8 years ago

jkichline said:

Or you could just get a Mac and not crash...

... as often" Macs do crash, at least mine does on occasion. Mail's been crashing more than it ever has. Of course, when it does crash it doesn't sit there collecting data, it just dumps the normal crash information quickly.

It will be fun to collect the QR codes for all the W10 crashes. I'm sure someone will create a log and present it in a unique and friendly way.

rob53 14 Years · 3345 comments

About 8 years ago

Though it currently points to a generic help page, the QR code will presumably eventually direct users to specific Windows support articles." I scanned the QR code and it does indeed go to the website listed above but isn't the contents of this page about as much information as Microsoft has ever given for a BSOD? Not to rag on Apple, but OSX crashes give a lot of technical information that's not much help for 99.999% of its users. At least Microsoft gives three possible reasons. Maybe Apple could learn from this and give OSX users some help with crashes. (What's wrong with me, I'm actually giving Microsoft a backhanded compliment. Not enough tea this morning.)

1 Like · 0 Dislikes

auxio 20 Years · 2780 comments

About 8 years ago

rob53 said:

jkichline said:

Or you could just get a Mac and not crash...

... as often" Macs do crash, at least mine does on occasion. Mail's been crashing more than it ever has.

Right, but that's simply an application crashing within Mac OS X, not Mac OS X itself crashing. The problem is that the Windows BSOD is Windows itself crashing and requires a reboot.

The only time I've seen Mac OS X crash these days is on my wife's old 2010 MacBook Pro (where the actual hardware seems to be failing).