The new feature builds on the long-standing Windows Memory Diagnostics tool, which users previously had to launch manually. Microsoft says the scan will run automatically during the next reboot after a crash, taking around five minutes before Windows loads. It will check for instability, mismatched modules, bad overclocking, or corrupted drivers that could have triggered the crash.

The feature appears in the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.6982 on the Dev Channel, though Arm64 systems are excluded for now.

The company said early rollouts will help it learn which crash codes are genuinely tied to memory faults. At launch, Windows will treat all BSODs as potentially memory-related and offer the scan as part of the recovery process.

Over time, Vole expects the feature to become more selective, offering targeted diagnostics only when the system suspects a true memory issue. The tool aims to help users understand whether their crashes come from physical RAM problems or software-related corruption, without needing to dig through crash dumps or event logs.

Those who prefer the old way can still access the Windows Memory Diagnostics manually, as it remains part of every version from Vista onwards.

The tool gives two options: Restart now and check for problems or Check for problems the next time I start my computer. Both perform the same function, running tests before Windows boots to identify hardware-related memory faults.

By baking memory testing directly into the reboot process, Vole is hoping to cut down the confusion around one of the most common and irritating causes of Windows instability. Users may finally have a clearer answer to that age-old question: was it Windows, or was it the RAM?