what is blue screen?

In case you're not sure what a blue screen problem even is, let's first review this important Windows term.

What's commonly called a "blue screen of death" in Windows 10, Windows 11, and other versions is technically known as a stop error or fatal system error. This occurs when the operating system crashes, meaning that it ran into some issue that prevented it from running safely. When this happens, Windows displays a blue screen with some information about the problem and then restarts.

Blue screens can happen for many reasons, which we'll dig into below. Common BSOD causes include bad drivers, problems with hardware, and operating system errors.

Newer versions of Windows, like Windows 10 and 11, are more stable than earlier versions, so you hopefully won't run into blue screens too often. You should also know that a blue screen occurring one time isn't necessarily an issue. Sometimes Windows will freak out with a BSOD, then work perfectly fine after you reboot.

Thus, you should only need to dig into the following blue screen error fixes if you continually hit a blue screen.