On July 21, Microsoft released a recovery tool to fix Windows devices that crashed due to a buggy CrowdStrike update. Previously, a buggy update to CrowdStrike caused 8.5 million Windows devices around the world to crash on the blue screen.
The new tool creates bootable USB drives that administrators can use to quickly restore affected machines. While CrowdStrike has released an update to fix the software, not all machines will automatically receive the update.
Microsoft’s recovery tool boots the Windows PE environment via USB, accesses the affected machine’s disk, and automatically deletes the problematic CrowdStrike files. Without having to enter Safe Mode or have administrator rights to the machine, the tool can directly access the disk without booting the local Windows system. If the disk is protected by BitLocker encryption, the tool will prompt you to enter the BitLocker recovery key and then proceed to repair the CrowdStrike update.
