Did You Know Windows 10 Has a Green Screen of Death?

Everyone’s heard about the blue screen of death (BSOD) that appears when your Windows PC crashes. But did you know Windows 10 has a green screen of death, too?

The green screen of death only appears when you’re running an Insider Preview version of Windows 10. It’s the same as the blue screen of death, and it will show the same error messages.

In other words, anything that triggers a blue screen of death on a normal version of Windows 10 will trigger a green screen of death on an Insider Preview version of Windows 10. The only difference is this screen says you’re using a “Windows Insider Build” and it has a green background instead of a blue one.

The green color highlights that the error was generated by unstable development builds of Windows 10. These Insider builds often have crashes and bugs you wouldn’t experience on a normal version of Windows 10. Microsoft sometimes warns of “green screen” errors Windows Insiders may encounter while running this development software.

If you see a green screen of death (GSOD) on your PC, that’s a sign you’re using an Insider Preview build of Windows 10. The problem could just be a bug in the unstable build, although it could also be a deeper problem with your PC’s hardware or drivers. You won’t know for sure until you go back to a stable version of Windows 10.

Microsoft made this change back in the Creators Update, which was released in April 2017. Before that, Insider builds of Windows 10 used standard blue screens of death.

If you’re using an Insider Preview build of Windows 10 and want to see it for yourself, this registry hack for manually triggering a blue screen still works—and it’ll trigger a green screen with the “MANUALLY INITIATED CRASH” stop code.