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Still, that’s 8.5 million devices causing turmoil worldwide, and as a result,Microsoft saysit deployed hundreds of Microsoft engineers and experts to work with customers to restore their stricken services (viaThe Verge). MS also engaged directly with CrowdStrike to work on a solution, with the company releasing its own,separate statementregarding some of the technical issues that caused the event.
At the core of the fault was a configuration file contained in an update for CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform, which triggered a logic error that in turn caused a BSOD loop on Windows systems running Falcon sensor software.
CrowdStrike has since corrected the logic error in a further update, andMicrosoft has released a custom recovery toolto remove it. Prior to the release of the tool, admins needed to reboot affected Windows devices into Safe Mode or the Recovery Environment and manually remove the buggy file.
However, questions have been asked as to how such an update was allowed into critical Windows systems en masse in the first place, causing a disaster thatmay end up being one of the worst tech outages of all time. Ex-Microsoft engineer David W Plummer has tweeted a comparison of how Windows debugging processes were handled during his time at the company, and how this particular event differs.
How we did this in the old days:When I was on Windows, this was the type of thing that greeted you every morning. Every. Single. Morning.You see, we all had a secondary “debug” PC, and each night we’d run NTStress on all of them, and all the lab machines. NTStress would… pic.twitter.com/rZkvpujbcrJuly 20, 2024
How we did this in the old days:When I was on Windows, this was the type of thing that greeted you every morning. Every. Single. Morning.You see, we all had a secondary “debug” PC, and each night we’d run NTStress on all of them, and all the lab machines. NTStress would… pic.twitter.com/rZkvpujbcrJuly 20, 2024
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Well, it’s all been a bit of a clusterfudge, hasn’t it? Microsoft is unlikely to be happy that its name is once again in the headlines for server-related issues, although in recent years it’s often beensecurity breaches that have earned it criticism. As of now, the issue appears to have been fixed, at least, and perhaps some lessons have been learned for third-party updates in future.
Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines.Best gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming.
Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines.Best gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming.
Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines.Best gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming.
Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines.Best gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming.

Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines.Best gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming.
Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines.Best gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming.
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