I wrote awhile back on how to crash Linux/cause a Linux kernel panic in order to test how your program can handle a crash – but can you cause a Windows blue-screen programmatically?

Raymond Chen of the New Old Thing describes a variety of methods to crash Windows purposefully. He also cautions against ad-hoc methods like killing winlogin.

Methods you can use to cause a Windows Blue-screen:

1. Windows allows you to configure a specific keyboard combination to cause a crash. You set some registry keys and then can crash a system by holding right CTRL then pressing scroll lock key twice. You can also customize the key sequence via registering custom keyboard scan codes. If you have a kernel debugger attached it will trigger the kernel debugger after the crash dump is written.
2. The best way to trigger an artificial kernel crash is to use NotMyFault, which is part of the Microsoft Windows SysInternals tools.