Microsoft's Quick Machine Recovery Prevents Windows Outages
Microsoft is piloting "Quick Machine Recovery," a feature aimed at preventing large-scale outages reminiscent of the Crowdstrike incident. This new tool, now available in the latest Windows Insider Preview build (6120.3653), empowers IT professionals to remotely restore Windows 11 devices, even when they fail to boot.
The need for such a feature became glaringly obvious after the Crowdstrike debacle last year. A flawed kernel update from Crowdstrike triggered the dreaded Blue Screen of Death on millions of Windows machines. The fallout affected critical infrastructure like banks, airlines, and broadcasters. The biggest issue was the slow recovery time, often requiring physical access to each affected machine.
How Quick Machine Recovery Works
Quick Machine Recovery is designed to mitigate these kinds of disasters. When a device experiences a critical failure, the feature automatically triggers a boot into the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). Within this environment, the machine maintains network connectivity and transmits diagnostic data to Microsoft. Crucially, this allows Microsoft to remotely deploy fixes through the established Windows Update channels.
The feature is enabled by default for home users. Windows Insiders are encouraged to test its functionality in a simulated environment to better understand its capabilities and ensure a smoother rollout.
This could prevent future chaos caused by faulty updates.
Source: The Verge