Microsoft Issues Surface 2 BitLocker Fix

If you have a Surface 2 tablet and have experienced the BitLocker recovery key bug—and trust me, if you have, you'll know it—you'll be happy to hear that Microsoft has issued a fix.

The Surface 2 BitLocker recovery key bug shows up when you reboot or turn on the device. Instead of booting into Windows, you're prompted to enter your BitLocker recovery key first. Since virtually no one who uses such a device knows what that is, let alone where to find such a thing, hilarity ensues.

(Hint: You can get yours at http://www.skydrive.com/recoverykey.)

Anyway. It's been fixed.

In the Microsoft KB article Surface 2 prompts you for the BitLocker recovery key when you restart the device, you can find out more about this problem and find out how to download the fix.

(Hint: It's in Windows Update.)

Symptoms:

When you use a Surface 2 device, you are prompted to enter your BitLocker recovery key after you turn on or restart the device or you resume the device from the sleep state. These messages may be random or they may occur every time that you try to restore the device to operation.

Resolution:

To resolve this problem, install an update that is now available for the Surface 2 device from Windows Update(http://update.microsoft.com) . You will need to reboot.

A few notes.

This updates applies only to Surface 2 and not to Surface RT, Surface Pro or Surface Pro 2.

This update is not related to the aborted Surface Pro 2 firmware update from December. There's still no word yet on when the expedited fix for that problem is expected, sorry.