It's been about four months since a global outage related to Windows and CrowdStrike software took out millions of systems around the world, leading to failures in all kinds of important services from airports to hospitals. The disaster resulted in billions of dollars of financial losses, so naturally, Microsoft is trying to avoid that ever happenign again.
Ahead of the Ignite conference this week, the company has announced new measures to improve the resiliency of Windows systems. Additionally, the company announced new security features for Windows 11, as well as other improvements.
In the wake of CrowdStrike, Microsoft publishes a guide of best practices to avoid future issues
Microsoft handled a lot of call-ins after the CrowdStrike outage, and now it's sharing what helped companies get back on their feet quickest.
Improving Windows security and reliability
More security with less downtime
After the CrowdStrike incident, Microsoft wants to make sure Windows PCs aren't rendered unusable due to potential software issues. One of the big steps it's taking to prevent a repeat of the CrowdStrike incident is called Quick Machine Recovery. This is a feature that will allow WIndows PCs to apply specific targeted fixes using Windows Update, even if the PC isn't able to boot and without requiring physical access to the PC. In a situation like what happened with CrowdStrike, this could have allowed broken PCs to get back to working order much more quickly, reducing downtime and potential losses. This feature will be available in preview for Windows Insiders early next year.
This is not all, however. Microsoft is also requiring its partners in the Microsoft Virus Initiative (MVI) to use deployment measures that help prevent widespread issues, including gradual controlled rollouts. This should make it possible for potential issues to be spotted before they become widespread.
Additionally, Microsoft is also working to enable antivirus products on Windows to run outside of kernel mode, making it so that crashes caused by anti-virus software only affect the app, and not the entirety of Windows. This new capability will be available to MVI partners in July of next year.
Rounding things out, Microsoft also announced one final new feature called Hotpatch in Windows. Available for Windows 11 Enterprise (version 24H2) and Windows 365, hotpatching allows WIndows to apply critical security updates without needing to restart the system. According to Microsoft, this reduces the time needed to adopt the latest patches by as much as 60%, and it also reduces the number of annual required restarts for security updates. With this change, computers should only need to restart 4 times a year, rather than 12.
Simplifying user permissions
Microsoft highlighted a feature that's already in testing with Insiders, called administrator protection. This feature makes it so that users on Windows only have standard user permissions by default, and operations that require administrator permissions will simply prompt the user to verify their identity using Windows Hello.
An administrator token is generated exclusively for the task that is requesting administrator permission, and then destroyed, so these permissions don't persist. This should make it easier for users to do any task they need to do on their computer with less friction, while still creating a roadblock for malware, since any task that requires admin permissions will need explicit approval from the user.
Windows 11 comes to Mixed Reality
Microsoft just recently killed off Windows Mixed Reality with the update to Windows 11 version 24H2, but it's already bringing it back — kind of, anyway. Among the company's Windows announcements is the availability of Windows 11 for the Meta Quest 3 and 3S. Users can connect to a local Windows 11 machine or use Windows 365 to access a full Windows interface in their Meta Quest headset.
It seems like Windows 11 in mixed reality is not like Windows Mixed Reality used to be, though. Microsoft says you can use your headset as a multi-monitor workstation, which means you'd be basically using the headset as a way to view multiple Windows 11 screens.
Aside from these news, Microsoft also shared some updates on Copilot+ features, including using the NPU for Copilot in Microsoft 365, disabling Windows Recall by default, and making APIs available for new Copilot+ features like Super Resolution. Microsoft also announced Windows 365 Link, a device to boot Windows 365, lacking local user storage.