It was more fragile 20 years ago than it is today.

It was more robust 5 years ago than it is today.

Or at least that's been my impression. I can't back that up with hard data.

>> I realize BSOD is no longer nearly as common as it once was

Anecdotally, installing wrong drivers (in my case it was drivers for COM-port STM32 interaction) could make it as common as twice a day on Win11. While my windows server 2008 still doing just great, no BSOD through lifetime.

I agree that for a common user BSOD is now less likely to happen, but wonder whether it's less to do with windows core, and more with windows defender default aggressive settings