Blue Screen of Death

What it shows

A blue screen with two lines of plain white text in the upper left: "Something went wrong, and this computer needs to restart." and "Restarting · 0%". It is a still picture. The number stays at 0% and nothing on it moves, which is exactly what makes a crash screen convincing for a prank or a prop in a video.

Press Go Fullscreen to fill the screen with it. Start does the same job on the page, holding the screen awake while it is shown.

What it leaves out, on purpose

Fake crash and warning screens are a well-known trick of scams that try to frighten people into calling a number or visiting a website. This page is built to be nothing like that. It shows no phone number, no web address, no QR code and no error codes, it asks nobody to do anything, and it makes no sound. It also has no sad face and none of Microsoft's wording, only our own two lines.

Leaving it

Press Esc, click, or tap anywhere, and it closes, exactly as every full-screen tool on this site does. On a phone that cannot go full screen, the picture covers the browser window instead and an Exit button stays in the corner. Nothing here tries to stop anyone leaving, and the Back button works as usual. Keep screen awake starts switched on while it is shown, and the status line says whether your browser agreed.

Nothing is installed, changed, stored or sent. The computer keeps running normally underneath the picture, and any open work is untouched.

Not Microsoft's screen

Windows is a trademark of Microsoft. ScreenTail is not made by or connected with Microsoft, and the screen here is a generic one drawn by this page. "Blue Screen of Death" is the popular nickname for a crash screen, which is why this page carries it.