BSoD

Alternatively referred to as a bluescreen or bugcheck in Microsoft Windows NT, 2000, and XP, BSoD is short for Blue Screen of Death and is a full blue screen error message generated by Microsoft Windows operating systems. Below are some examples of what a BSoD may look like.

Example of a Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98,
and Windows ME blue screen of death

Example of a Microsoft Windows XP
blue screen of death

The blue screen is most commonly encountered and associated with a computer running Microsoft Windows. However, other operating systems such as the Apple Macintosh may also get a blank blue screen, which is also referred to as a BSOD. Apple computers that have a blank blue screen indicate that the hard drive is bad in that computer.

Also see: Black screen of death, Bomb, Error, GPF, Guru Meditation, Operating system definitions, Windows minidump