How to Use Windows’ New Quick PC Repair Tool
If you installed the big Windows 11 update Microsoft released in August (which also included the new Black Screen of Death ), you’ll notice a brand new entry in Settings: Quick PC Recovery (QMR), under System > Recovery .
It is designed to solve the most annoying problem: when your computer won’t boot. Although it is not much different from previous Windows troubleshooting tools, its goal (as the name suggests) is to get your computer back up and running quickly and easily.
Hopefully you’ll never have to use it, but if you’re experiencing problems with your PC not starting up, here’s what you need to know about Quick Machine Recovery.
How does Fast Machine Recovery work?
For some time now, Windows has been configured to use the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) in the event that the system fails to boot normally. WinRE is a basic, stripped-down graphical interface that provides a variety of troubleshooting tools. For example, you can uninstall the latest Windows update or change your computer’s boot options.
One such troubleshooting tool is Startup Repair, and it’s this feature that QMR is improving. Startup Repair checks key settings files that Windows uses to boot, including the registry, and fixes any errors it finds, but it also relies on troubleshooting information already built into Windows.
QMR works similarly, but has a few important twists: First, it can go online and look for solutions that Microsoft might have provided via Windows Update, even if Windows won’t boot; second, it can automatically apply any fixes it finds. In theory, your unbootable PC should be able to fix itself.
An added bonus is that all of this can be done remotely, which is unlikely to interest you unless you manage a lot of corporate computers. “This feature automatically searches the cloud for solutions and recovers from mass boot failures, significantly reducing the burden on IT administrators when multiple devices fail,” Microsoft says .
The introduction of QMR is part of a new Windows resiliency initiative designed to prevent incidents like the CrowdStrike outage from happening on such a large scale again. The next time something like the CrowdStrike outage happens, computers around the world won’t crash and will be able to recover on their own.
How to use Quick Machine Recovery
You can find QMR on a Windows PC by opening Settings and going to System > Recovery > Quickly Restore your PC . There’s a simple toggle to turn QMR on or off, as well as a toggle for “ Continue searching if no solution is found .” This means QMR will continue searching for solutions if it doesn’t find any after the first try.
Click the down arrow next to the option “Continue searching if no solution found”. You can adjust the frequency of searching for solutions (from 10 minutes to 12 hours) and the frequency of automatic reboot (from 180 minutes to 72 hours). The recommended values are 30 minutes and 72 hours, respectively.
Luckily, my computer is working fine right now, so I couldn’t test QMR. However, if it’s enabled, it will automatically activate if the computer doesn’t boot properly: a message will appear on the screen saying that it’s checking online for solutions to the problem.
If a solution is found, your computer will reboot and possibly boot into Windows. But if problems persist, QMR will try to find another solution. If no solution is found, you will see a message indicating how long QMR will wait before trying again. At this point, you can also press Enter to go into the regular WinRE environment, which still includes the standard Startup Repair tool.
If QMR is disabled in Windows, it is still available in the WinRE environment, which appears if your computer won’t boot and QMR is disabled. You can also launch WinRE from Windows as before: select System > Recovery under Settings, then click Restart now next to Advanced startup .