Microsoft Users See ‘Blue Screen of Death’ After Outage

Microsoft users face “blue screen of death” due to a CrowdStrike update, causing shares to drop 1.3% in premarket trading

Amid persistent, pervasive technological malfunctions, Microsoft users worldwide encounter an error screen called the “blue screen of death.”

An update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike resulted in a significant IT outage for the U.S. tech behemoth. Numerous additional organizations have also been affected.

Microsoft acknowledged an issue with Windows 365 Cloud PCs caused by a recent update to CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor software on its 365 Status X account.

It recommended that impacted users “restore their Windows 365 Cloud PC to a known good state before the release of the update (July 19, 2024)” and directed them to online instructions.

Microsoft stated in a separate update that users may experience a flaw check, also known as the blue screen of death or BSOD, and become “trapped in a restarting state.”

“We have received reports of successful recovery from certain customers who attempted to restart multiple virtual machines on affected virtual machines,” the company stated.

CrowdStrike has removed the impacted update. CrowdStrike should be contacted for further assistance if customers are still experiencing problems.

CrowdStrike’s CEO stated on X that the company was “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.”. Mac and Linux hosts are not affected.

“This is not a cyberattack or security incident.” George Kurtz further stated, “The issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed.”

Microsoft had previously announced that its cloud services had been restored following a disruption that compromised its Azure services and Microsoft 365 suite of applications in the central U.S. region.

A company spokesperson informed Dow Jones that these are two distinct and unrelated matters: one pertains to Azure and CrowdStrike.

In premarket trading at 7:18 a.m. ET, Microsoft shares were approximately 1.3% lower than their previous lows.