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Microsoft has a suggested solution for individual customers affected by what may turn out to be the largest IT outage that has ever happened: Just reboot it … a lot.
Airlines have grounded flights, some banks are closed, and businesses around the world are dealing with Blue Screens of Death (BSoD) because of an issue in CrowdStrike’s Falcon, a piece of widely used cybersecurity software. Customers can delete a specific file called “C00000291*.sys, which is seemingly tied to the bug, Microsoft said in a status update published Friday. But in some cases, people can’t even get to a spot where they can delete that file. In an update posted Friday morning, Microsoft told users that they should simply reboot Virtual Machines (VMs) experiencing a BSoD over and over again until they can fix the issue. This is perhaps one of the best “turn it off and turn it back on” suggestions ever.
“We have received reports of successful recovery from some customers attempting multiple Virtual Machine restart operations on affected Virtual Machines,” Microsoft told users. “We have received feedback from customers that several reboots (as many as 15 have been reported) may be required, but overall feedback is that reboots are an effective troubleshooting step at this stage.”