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Microsoft replaces ‘blue screen of death' with sleek black version

Microsoft replaces ‘blue screen of death' with sleek black version

Qatar Tribune16 hours ago

Agencies
Nearly every Windows user has had a run-in with the infamous 'Blue Screen of Death' at some point in their computing life. Now, after more than 40 years of being set against a very recognizable blue, the updated error message will soon be displayed across a black background.
The changes to the notorious error screen come as part of broader efforts by Microsoft to improve the resiliency of the Windows operating system in the wake of last year's CrowdStrike incident, which crashed millions of Windows machines worldwide.
'Now it's easier than ever to navigate unexpected restarts and recover faster,' Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft wrote in a Wednesday announcement.
As part of that effort, Microsoft says it's 'streamlining' what users experience when encountering 'unexpected restarts' that cause disruptions. And that means a makeover to the infamous error screen.
Beyond the now-black background, Windows' new 'screen of death' has a slightly shorter message. It's also no longer accompanied by a frowning face - and instead shows a percentage completed for the restart process.
Microsoft says this 'simplified' user interface for unexpected restarts will be available later this summer on all of its Windows 11 (version 24H2) devices.
And for PCs that may not restart successfully, Microsoft on Wednesday also said it's adding a 'quick machine recovery' mechanism.
The will be particularly useful for during a widespread outage, the tech giant noted, as Microsoft 'can broadly deploy targeted remediations' and automate fixes with this new mechanism 'without requiring complex manual intervention from IT.'
Microsoft said this quick machine recovery will also be 'generally available' later this summer on Window 11 - with additional capabilities set to launch later in the year.

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Microsoft replaces ‘blue screen of death' with sleek black version
Microsoft replaces ‘blue screen of death' with sleek black version

Qatar Tribune

time16 hours ago

  • Qatar Tribune

Microsoft replaces ‘blue screen of death' with sleek black version

Agencies Nearly every Windows user has had a run-in with the infamous 'Blue Screen of Death' at some point in their computing life. Now, after more than 40 years of being set against a very recognizable blue, the updated error message will soon be displayed across a black background. The changes to the notorious error screen come as part of broader efforts by Microsoft to improve the resiliency of the Windows operating system in the wake of last year's CrowdStrike incident, which crashed millions of Windows machines worldwide. 'Now it's easier than ever to navigate unexpected restarts and recover faster,' Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft wrote in a Wednesday announcement. As part of that effort, Microsoft says it's 'streamlining' what users experience when encountering 'unexpected restarts' that cause disruptions. And that means a makeover to the infamous error screen. Beyond the now-black background, Windows' new 'screen of death' has a slightly shorter message. It's also no longer accompanied by a frowning face - and instead shows a percentage completed for the restart process. Microsoft says this 'simplified' user interface for unexpected restarts will be available later this summer on all of its Windows 11 (version 24H2) devices. And for PCs that may not restart successfully, Microsoft on Wednesday also said it's adding a 'quick machine recovery' mechanism. The will be particularly useful for during a widespread outage, the tech giant noted, as Microsoft 'can broadly deploy targeted remediations' and automate fixes with this new mechanism 'without requiring complex manual intervention from IT.' Microsoft said this quick machine recovery will also be 'generally available' later this summer on Window 11 - with additional capabilities set to launch later in the year.

Europe seeks ‘digital sovereignty' as US tech firms embrace Trump
Europe seeks ‘digital sovereignty' as US tech firms embrace Trump

Qatar Tribune

time21-06-2025

  • Qatar Tribune

Europe seeks ‘digital sovereignty' as US tech firms embrace Trump

Agencies At a market stall in Berlin run by charity Topio, volunteers help people who want to purge their phones of the influence of US tech firms. Since Donald Trump's inauguration, the queue for their services has grown. Interest in European-based digital services has jumped in recent months, data from digital market intelligence company Similarweb shows. More people are looking for e-mail, messaging and even search providers outside the United States. The first months of Trump's second presidency have shaken some Europeans' confidence in their long-time ally, after he signaled his country would step back from its role in Europe's security and then launched a trade war. 'It's about the concentration of power in US firms,' said Topio's founder Michael Wirths, as his colleague installed on a customer's phone a version of the Android operating system without hooks into the Google ecosystem. Wirths said the type of people coming to the stall had changed: 'Before, it was people who knew a lot about data privacy. Now it's people who are politically aware and feel exposed.' Tesla chief Elon Musk, who also owns social media company X, was a leading adviser to the US president before the two fell out, while the bosses of Amazon, Meta and Google-owner Alphabet took prominent spots at Trump's inauguration in January. Days before Trump took office, outgoing president Joe Biden had warned of an oligarchic 'tech industrial complex' threatening democracy. Berlin-based search engine Ecosia says it has benefited from some customers' desire to avoid US counterparts like Microsoft's Bing or Google, which dominates web searches and is also the world's biggest email provider. 'The worse it gets, the better it is for us,' founder Christian Kroll said of Ecosia, whose sales pitch is that it spends its profits on environmental projects. Similarweb data shows the number of queries directed to Ecosia from the European Union has risen 27 percent year-on-year and the company says it has 1 percent of the German search engine market. But its 122 million visits from the 27 EU countries in February were dwarfed by 10.3 billion visits to Google, whose parent Alphabet made revenues of about $100 billion from Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2024 - nearly a third of its $350 billion global turnover. Non-profit Ecosia earned 3.2 million euros ($3.65 million) in April, of which 770,000 euros was spent on planting 1.1 million trees. Google declined to comment for this story. Reuters could not determine whether major US tech companies have lost any market share to local rivals in Europe. The search for alternative providers accompanies a debate in Europe about 'digital sovereignty' - the idea that reliance on companies from an increasingly isolationist United States is a threat to Europe's economy and security. 'Ordinary people, the kind of people who would never have thought it was important they were using an American service are saying, 'hang on!',' said UK-based internet regulation expert Maria Farrell. 'My hairdresser was asking me what she should switch to.' Use in Europe of Swiss-based ProtonMail rose 11.7 percent year-on-year to March compared to a year ago, according to Similarweb, while use of Alphabet's Gmail, which has some 70 percent of the global email market, slipped 1.9 percent. ProtonMail, which offers both free and paid-for services, said it had seen an increase in users from Europe since Trump's re-election, though it declined to give a number. 'My household is definitely disengaging,' said British software engineer Ken Tindell, citing weak US data privacy protections as one factor. Trump's vice president JD Vance shocked European leaders in February by accusing them - at a conference usually known for displays of transatlantic unity - of censoring free speech and failing to control immigration. In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened visa bans for people who 'censor' speech by Americans, including on social media, and suggested the policy could target foreign officials regulating US tech companies. US social media companies like Facebook and Instagram parent Meta have said the European Union's Digital Services Act amounts to censorship of their platforms. EU officials say the Act will make the online environment safer by compelling tech giants to tackle illegal content, including hate speech and child sexual abuse material. Greg Nojeim, director of the Security and Surveillance Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, said Europeans' concerns about the US government accessing their data, whether stored on devices or in the cloud, were justified. Not only does US law permit the government to search devices of anyone entering the country, it can compel disclosure of data that Europeans outside the US store or transmit through US communications service providers, Nojeim said. Germany's new government is itself making efforts to reduce exposure to US tech, committing in its coalition agreement to make more use of open-source data formats and locally-based cloud infrastructure. Regional governments have gone further - in conservative-run Schleswig-Holstein, on the Danish border, all IT used by the public administration must run on open-source software. Berlin has also paid for Ukraine to access a satellite-internet network operated by France's Eutelsat instead of Musk's Starlink. But with modern life driven by technology, 'completely divorcing US tech in a very fundamental way is, I would say, possibly not possible,' said Bill Budington of US digital rights nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Everything from push notifications to the content delivery networks powering many websites and how internet traffic is routed relies largely on US companies and infrastructure, Budington noted. Both Ecosia and French-based search engine Qwant depend in part on search results provided by Google and Microsoft's Bing, while Ecosia runs on cloud platforms, some hosted by the very same tech giants it promises an escape from. Nevertheless, a group on messaging board Reddit called BuyFromEU has 211,000 members. 'Just cancelled my Dropbox and will switch to Proton Drive,' read one post. Mastodon, a decentralized social media service developed by German programmer Eugen Rochko, enjoyed a rush of new users two years ago when Musk bought Twitter, later renamed X. But it remains a niche service.

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