Almost a year ago, the world awoke to a Windows BSOD outage that spanned retail spaces, airports, point-of-service machines, and businesses all across the world. It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the outage, but it was soon discovered to be a faulty driver issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
While Microsoft wasn’t the culprit, it did shine a harsh light on shortcomings of Windows as an operating system regarding cybersecurity, the kernel, and third-party software makers. It was clear something needed to change, which resulted in the birth of the Windows Resiliency Initiative (WSI) last year to help solve these issues.
Since then, Microsoft has moved fast to improve Windows so that it’s less susceptible to third-party cybersecurity software taking down the OS at a kernel level. Today, the company has provided an update on its progress on this front.
Firstly, it’s changing the BSOD screen entirely. No longer will the iconic error screen be blue, or feature a sad face. It will now look more like an update screen, featuring a black background and a simplified message that says “Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart.”
The new BSOD screen will show an error code at the bottom, along with the name of the system file or driver that failed, but forgoes the handy QR code that used to appear. It’s fair to say the new screen is notably less iconic than the BSOD of old. The new BSOD screen will roll out later this year on Windows 11 version 24H2.
Microsoft is also making several key changes to Windows that security software must adhere to if they want to continue operation on the platform. As part of the Microsoft Virus Initiative 3.0 (MVI) program, security software makers will need to leverage deployment rings for any updates issued to their software.
Deployment rings will allow these cybersecurity companies to track the progress of an update rollout, ensuring the update isn’t causing havoc on Windows PCs as it makes its way to customers. In the event an update is discovered to be causing issues, software makers will be able to pause the rollout.
Additionally, certain cybersecurity software will no longer be allowed to run at a kernel level. Instead, anti-virus and endpoint protection solutions will run in user mode, just like normal Windows apps, limiting the amount of damage they can do to the OS should an update go wrong.
Microsoft is also making several improvements to Windows as a product to improve the experience when the OS is taken offline by a faulty driver or update.
With Windows 11 version 24H2, the OS is now also quicker at creating a crash dump, allowing the device to attempt a restart faster. In the event that Windows is unable to restart, it will enter into a new quick machine recovery mode, designed to allow Microsoft to issue fixes to a device that has been taken offline by a faulty update without manual IT intervention.
Quick machine recovery will be available later this year, and will be available on all editions of Windows 11, including Windows 11 Home, Pro, and Enterprise. Of course, to obtain these improvements, enterprises will need to upgrade their Windows 10 PCs to Windows 11.
It’s clear that Microsoft is adamant to ensure a scenario like the CrowdStrike outage last year never happens again on the Windows platform. It was an event that made headline news across the globe, and made Microsoft and Windows look bad, even if it wasn’t their fault directly.
That’s probably why Microsoft is attempting to make the BSOD screen less iconic.
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