Microsoft
has
released
a
recovery
tool
that’s
designed
to
help
IT
admins
repair
Windows
machines
that
were
impacted
by
CrowdStrike’s
faulty
update
that
crashed
8.5
million
Windows
devices
on
Friday.
The
tool
creates
a
bootable
USB
drive
that
IT
admins
can
use
to
help
quickly
recover
impacted
machines.
While
CrowdStrike
has
issued
an
update
to
fix
its
software
that
led
to
millions
of
Blue
Screen
of
Death
errors,
not
all
machines
are
able
to
automatically
receive
that
fix.
Some
IT
admins
have
reported
rebooting
PCs
multiple
times
will
get
the
necessary
update,
but
for
others
the
only
route
is
having
to
manually
boot
into
Safe
Mode
and
deleting
the
problematic
CrowdStrike
update
file.
Microsoft’s
recovery
tool
now
makes
this
recovery
process
less
manual,
by
booting
into
its
Windows
PE
environment
via
USB,
accessing
the
disk
of
the
affected
machine,
and
automatically
deleting
the
problematic
CrowdStrike
file
to
allow
the
machine
to
boot
properly.
This
avoids
having
to
boot
into
Safe
Mode
or
a
requirement
of
admin
rights
on
the
machine,
because
the
tool
is
simply
accessing
the
disk
without
booting
into
the
local
copy
of
Windows.
If
a
disk
is
protected
by
BitLocker
encryption,
the
tool
will
prompt
for
the
BitLocker
recovery
key
and
then
continue
to
fix
the
CrowdStrike
update.
Microsoft
also
has
separate
recovery
steps
available
for
Windows
Virtual
Machines
running
on
Azure,
and
the
company
has
also
published
recovery
steps
for
all
Windows
10
and
Windows
11
devices
over
at
its
support
site.
(Originally posted by Tom Warren)
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