Microsoft Now Has a Recovery Tool to Help With CrowdStrike Issues

The updated recovery tool has two repair options to help IT admins

By
Jerri Ledford
Jerri Ledford
Jerri Ledford
Senior News Editor, Fact Checker
  • Western Kentucky University
  • Gulf Coast Community College
Jerri L. Ledford has been writing, editing, and fact-checking tech stories since 1994. Her work has appeared in Computerworld, PC Magazine, Information Today, and many others.
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Published on July 22, 2024 10:29AM EDT
Tech & Business News

Following the CrowdStrike outage last week, some IT administrators are still trying to get computers back online; this tool can help.

On Friday, a faulty CrowdStrike update crashed computers around the globe, now Microsoft has an updated recovery tool to help get remaining systems back online.

The updated recovery tool was detailed in a Microsoft support note on Saturday (July 20), and Microsoft has since incorporated additional features based on customer feedback. The updated recovery tool now allows two options for recovering an affected system and deleting the faulty CrowdStrike update: Recover from WinPE and Recover from safe mode.

A business person looking at two screens displaying the Blue Screen of Death.
The CrowdStrike update brought down computers around the world.

AndreyPopov / Getty Images

The Recover from WinPE option allows administrators to recover the system without administrator credentials. However, if BitLocker is installed, the person implementing the fix will need to enter the BitLocker recovery key to gain access and repair the system. Once the BitLocker password is entered, then the Windows PE environment can be booted via USB, and the CrowdStrike update deleted automatically, which should allow the system to reboot properly.

The Recover from safe mode option does not require a BitLocker password, but the person recovering the system will need administrator permissions, but the system will then work the same, automatically deleting the problematic CrowdStrike file so the computer can reboot normally.

Additional options for Windows Virtual Machines running on Azure were also made available.

If you're still experiencing issues after the CrowdStrike update, Microsoft's support site has instructions for repairing Windows 10 and Windows 11 machines.

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