The BSOD only comes in blue and white (did something bad), red and white (did something REALLY bad), or black and white (xbox 360) and is boring. The cause of the problem cannot be solved a lot of the time, but can be triggered at the drop of a hat. In Windows XP, Microsoft has set the default behavior to reboot on bluescreen so you see this a lot less.
View attachment 55779
View attachment 55781
The Kernel Panic comes in multiple shades of gray and multiple languages and looks cooler. Usually can be traced to a hardware issue or bad program, which is easily gotten rid of in most cases.
View attachment 55782
View attachment 55783
The beachball is rainbow colored, and you can still do other tasks while the beachball is spinning.
View attachment 55780
The hourglass (not shown due to a limited number of attachments), often comes before a crash, and often does not allow you to switch to another task while taking up all your CPU time.