IT administrators around the world are looking for a solution to fix the Blue Screen of Death. You can wait for CrowdStrike or fix your crashed PC yourself.

The world seems to be on fire because of the CrowdStrike update that has brought millions of PCs to a standstill. Falcon Sensor, a solution designed to enable a secure connection between devices and the cloud, has encountered a bug. After a recent update, many users are left with a crashed Windows PC. The problems can affect Windows 10 and Windows 11 as well as servers.

A Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) is difficult for the IT team because it is difficult to resolve remotely. Quickly installing a patch is not an option. Fortunately, there is now a solution to fix crashed PCs. This requires PCs to boot into safe mode. After that, you need to delete a specific file.

How to enter safe mode?

The easiest way to start Windows 10 or Windows 11 in safe mode is through the operating system’s settings menu. Unfortunately, you can’t get there. To force safe mode, you’ll need to press a key combination when you start your PC. Unfortunately, this varies from brand to brand.

Once you turn on the PC, in most cases you will have to press the F8 key repeatedly before the Windows logo appears. If this is successful, an options menu will appear where you can select Safe Mode.

Repeat this a few times if you don’t see an options menu and keep getting the BSOD. If that doesn’t work, search online to find out how to enable Safe Mode on your specific PC.

Remove the fraudulent file

Once you’re in Safe Mode, the hard part is over. Then follow these steps:

• Navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike
• Find the file C-00000291*.sys
• Delete this file and restart your PC

If everything went well after the reboot, you should be past the BSOD. You shouldn’t worry about CrowdStrike crashing your PC again right away. The rogue update was taken offline immediately after the problem occurred. Downloading the new update won’t be a problem.

Because you’re booting in Safe Mode, external drivers like CrowdStrike’s that work at the kernel level won’t load. This way, you can continue using your PC. Bitlocker, Microsoft’s business encryption tool, can also be potentially annoying. The steps above also require administrator privileges.

Companies that work with virtual machines have it much easier. There, the IT team can easily roll back an update version to log in from an earlier point in time. In a VM, you don’t have to struggle with safe mode on the physical device itself.

Will there be a solution?

CrowdStrike is working on a solution that will be rolled out across the board, but is not providing status updates on progress. We wonder if it is even possible to fix the BSOD problem remotely. Perhaps it should join forces with Microsoft to do so? Let’s wait and see what the security service provider pulls out of its hat today and next weekend.

The CEO of CrowdStrike has already issued a mea culpa. “It may take some time for some systems to recover automatically, but our mission is to ensure that every customer is fully recovered.” In the following interview, he explicitly apologizes for the damage caused worldwide.