Microsoft this weekend released a remediation tool for the Crowdstrike bug that affected millions of Windows PCs on Friday.
Millions of Windows PCs and servers refused to start on Friday. When starting up, they were faced with a blue screen of death (BSOD). A restart did not help: systems came to a complete standstill. This did not only affect consumers: the consequences of the bug, caused by Crowdstrike security software, were felt worldwide. At airports, it led to thousands of cancelled flights, but hospitals and even the F1 were also affected by the Crowdstrike bug. Worldwide, the software supplier has approximately 29,000 customers.
Large companies were able to fix the Crowdstrike bug already in the course of Friday. For example, airports worldwide managed to get their systems back online on Friday evening. For companies with a smaller IT capacity, things may be a little different.
Crowdstrike Bug Fix Tool
Microsoft has a special offer for them this weekend recovery tool released. Although the bug was not caused by the software giant, the cause and solution do lie with a system component. Microsoft’s recovery tool offers two ‘routes’: via WinPE or safe mode. The first route lets you recover a Windows PC or server without local administrator rights. If your PC is protected with BitLocker, you must have the decryption key (recovery key).
If you don’t have that key, you can also use the recovery tool in safe mode. However, that route does require an account with administrator rights. Microsoft recommends that users only use this solution for “devices that use TPM-only protections, devices that are not encrypted, or situations where the BitLocker recovery key is unknown.”
Creating boot medium
To run the recovery tool on affected PCs or servers, a boot medium must first be created. This can be done via all 64-bit Windows PCs with at least 8 GB of free storage space. The USB stick (or other storage medium) that you use as a boot medium must contain at least 1 GB and a maximum of 32 GB of storage space. Microsoft emphasizes that the USB stick will be completely erased and formatted to FAT32 to act as a boot medium. If there is important data on the storage medium, you should save it elsewhere first.