There's lots of excitement for Microsoft's latest release, but one update in particular has the blogger-masses cheering: The new blue screen of death. That's right, Microsoft has forgone the code jarbled deep-blue screen, for a cleaner version, which depicts a frowny-face emoticon. Business Insider calls it sexy; Gizmodo finds it friendlier; TechCrunch thinks its a compassionate move. It's true: you can't even really call it a "screen of death," anymore, but while the latest update looks tamer, people should hold the excitement: it's really not too different than the original screen of horrors.

The blue screen of death has angered and frustrated Windows users for decades, many expected a redesign, but not like this, explains TechCrunch's Chris Velazco. "While Windows 8 was widely expected to have a black screen of death, the developer build released yesterday has revealed that Redmond has opted to stick with the historic blue." Scarred by years of that color reminding us we've lost all of our work as our computer-insides crashed and burned, blue is the new blue.

But beyond color, the new sparser message doesn't make things better either, really. No longer confronted with "a rather cryptic looking page of text to inform you that something has gone awry," explains Geekosystem's Edwin Keen, "the sad face is accompanied by a message that is far easier to understand for the average Joe." While many find that encouraging, Gizmodo's Kwame Opam has different associations: a text from an unhappy girl. "It's good to see Microsoft making even the worst of user experiences... friendlier? But now I'm laughing AND kind of depressed." Ubergizmo's Edwin Kee points out it's not all that informative. "It’s a shame Microsoft still hasn’t found a way to refine the error reporting process further and present users with a very clear description of why Windows 8 fell down," he writes. That's right, you're still left in the dark. Or, shall we say, in the blue.

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