Microsoft has released a tool to recover computers affected by the Blue Screen of DeathBSOD for its acronym in English, after the failed update of the security software of CrowdStrike on the cloud services platform Azure. This update caused approximately 8 and a half million computers worldwide became inoperative and unable to start their operating system, leading still chaos in a multitude of services that use Microsoft’s cloud platform: airports, banks, government agencies, gas stations, etc.
In the early hours after the incident, CrowdStrike published a procedure to recover affected computers that were unable to complete Windows boot, but now Microsoft has released a tool which allows you to automate the process with the help of a bootable USB and that could save a lot of time for IT administrators at the affected companies.
CrowdStrike also released an update to fix the software issue that caused millions of BSODs within hours of the global service outage, but Not all devices can receive this fix automatically.IT administrators have noted that restart PCs several times allows you to obtain it, but for others the only route is to have to Manually boot into Windows Safe Mode and remove the problematic CrowdStrike update file.
Microsoft’s recovery tool now makes this recovery process be faster by being able to start Windows via USB, access the hard drive of the affected machine and Automatically remove the problematic CrowdStrike file to allow it to boot properly. This avoids having to boot into safe mode or require administrator rights on the machine, as The tool simply accesses the disk without booting the local copy of Windows.. If a disk is protected by encryption BitLocker Windows, the tool will ask for the BitLocker recovery key and then continue to fix the CrowdStrike update.
Microsoft also has separate recovery processes available for Windows virtual machines running on Azureand the company has also published recovery procedures for all devices Windows 10 and Windows 11 on their support site.