I’m honestly starting to not believe these articles. On an up to date version of w11 I never see any of the changes these articles claim are happening. I’m a linux user so I like laughing at windows as much as the next guy but i dont want to be an idiot falling for misinfo.
If you want comedy, look at the apple help fourms. You think linux users reimage alot the only troubleshooting step apple has is to reimage.
Out of interest, which aspect don’t you believe? The article is clear the broken update effects a specific subset of enterprise users, on a specific mix of base versions and cumulative updates.
This seems like a classic windows update issue. In fairness to Microsoft it is difficult to prevent bugs when there is a huge install base, with a huge range of hardware, with a huge range of users on different mixes of updates and updating at their own. I personally think that’s totally believable.
What’s not clear is perhaps the implied overarching story that W11 is worse for this than other versions of Windows. I can’t answer that about windows updates themselves, but I certainly believe W11 is the worst version of Windows I’ve ever used (and I’ve used every version back to 3.11 as a kid). I have to use W11 at work: the UI is absolutely terrible and unfriendly but far worse it constantly and inexplicably slows down, programs become unresponsive repeatedly and I come across errors constantly.
I work in a big organisation and I don’t even bother to report most errors now - we hop between PCs because of the nature of my Job, and I’ve come up across so many I just can’t be bothered opening more tickets. I’d describe it as a mostly large volume of minor issues and inconveniences that cumulatively, on top of the bad design, that make it a shit experience. But I’ve also had numerous major errors since we moved from W10 to W11 on different PCs - they all have the same hardware and software yet the problems are different on each. I’ve given up reporting the problems and just avoid the PCs, and I think a lot of my colleagues are the same.
My organisation (I work in a large Hospital), is already stretched due to high work volume and low staffing and we now have a constantly little drag from Windows 11 on everything we do. It’s like Microsoft sprinkle a little bit of shit onto every computer, every day, all day. The cumulative effect in just my organisation must be massive - I shudder to think how bad it is across the whole economy.
The article is clear the broken update effects a specific subset of enterprise users, on a specific mix of base versions and cumulative updates.
So you admit the headline is lying, then? The headline doesn’t even try to use weasel words to say “some users”, it just straight-up says that the update removes things, heavily implying both that it’s a global change, and that it’s deliberate.
From the article:
The latest kerfuffle will only be seen by Enterprise users running Windows 11 24H2 or 25H2 who have a July 2025 cumulative update installed as well.
Are you running Windows 11 Enterprise?
Yeah and even did the steps listed and no issue. If its happening its a rare bug and as a linux user I dont wang to clown on rare bugs since that is throwing stones in a glass house.
the only troubleshooting step apple has is to reimage.
That’s not entirely true. More often than not, the only troubleshooting step the “Apple Certified Professionals” there offer is to buy a new Mac.
And you can trade in your existing one for a couple hundred bucks off a new purchase
Isn’t that a good deal?
Lol, no. A good majority of the time the issue is something simple like a loose or broken ribbon cable that would cost $3 in parts and $50 in labour (if you’re being generous with the time).
This practice of the “Genus” bar people telling a customer that they need a whole board replacement that would cost $2000 and saying it’s cheaper to get a whole new computer is well documented.
I was joking of course. I know about all of Apple’s exploits all too well
Ah, ok. Well, Poe’s law
Never in my life have I needed to reimage any Linux machine, but I have had to reimage many, many, many windows machines and quite a few Apple devices too. I have a long career in IT (and even before that, I’ve been building computers since I was 12), so my sample size consists of thousands of computers going back decades.
I’ve only ever reimaged Linux systems when I felt like distro hopping for fun. Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but I think it’s probably more to do with the fact that Linux tends to be extremely reliable once you have it set up (unless you manage to break it, but even then there are usually multiple ways to fix it without reimaging).
I went from an Ubuntu 16.04 install all the way to 20.04 and they involved multiple hardware upgrades and a completely new system at one point, just swapped out the root/home drive.
Since then I’ve been on EndeavourOS with pretty much the same story.
With Windows 7 and 10 I had to constantly reinstall.
same!… heck work updated my laptop from win10 to 11 and now the “Windows App” won’t run… IT dude gave up trying to fix it and order a swap
This is a laptop used, at most once a week, for regular office bs and it basically self destroyed just through windose updates
Same here (except I’m 35 years into being a tech hobbyist, not a professional), and I’ve never reimaged a Linux install (except to try imaging it and learn how it works). Having been exclusively on Linux for 9 years now (playing with it for over 20 years) and Fedora the last 6, I can confidently say that it’s easier to just keep your important files in a separate drive (home directory in its own drive for example) and just reinstall whatever you want if you end up breaking your OS. Reimaging seems way more convoluted.
I have Linux everywhere except one computer that needs to run Windows. Can I configure it to delay updates by, say, two weeks?
Iirc, you can with Pro, but not with home.
They’re still allowing you to hold back updates? So nice of them.
Well, you can configure only manual updates with notifications but I’d prefer automatic updates except not on day zero. At least on Win 1X Pro, on Home I think not.
Clearly their adoption of rushing out AI generated code is working well.
It could get rid of whole system and world would be a nicer place 😎
I hate Windows as much as the next person, but the title is clickbait. It’s an update bug that affects a small number of users, but the title misleadingly suggests Microsoft deliberately removed this functionality.
It is pretty bad. It’s specifically Enterprise that is effected, and if they’re pushing these kinds of bugs on Enterprise customers then they really don’t have the QA they need. Think about how much they care about what they push on standard customers.
It’s genuinely bad, even if entire universe isn’t affected. Shows sloppiness. Headline is too kind for implying this could be “some kind of design upgrade”, instead of FUBAR.
We’re running the oldest supported Windows version in our enterprise just to make sure these non-stop stream of Microsoft fuck-ups doesn’t affect us too much.
oldest supported
So, Windows 11 then, right?
Enterprises outside of Europe can get another year of Windows 10 if they pay for it.
Yes, 23H2 at the moment.
Edit: Enterprise edition, to be clear. Home and Pro 23H2 were eol a couple of weeks ago.
I can feel the UI lag in the picture
Everytime my windows work computer updates, something breaks. Now my mouse doesn’t work well and I’m so tired of dealing with it. IT has had enough of these stupid tickets for why something doesn’t work and why we need admin permissions to fix it.
The article title is clickbaity. It doesn’t ‘get rid of’ the start menu and explorer. It just makes the processes completely hang so you can’t open any applications, can’t open the menu and can’t open task manager to see wtf is going on. You also can’t access the shutdown function so you have to manually power off.
This happened to me as I was setting up a Windows 11 / Linux dual boot system yesterday, and the Windows side was behaving as described in the article.
I gave up and just installed Linux alone in the end.
The right click context menu for me has been unusable in certain circumstances for me for the past year or so. It’s happened on multiple devices, including corporate issued dell and Lenovo machines. The menu options just stop responding to clicking. After getting fed up with this and all the other crap I didn’t ask for, I finally just ripped the bandaid off, ditched dual booting, am now on full single boot Linux mint.
And, it’s so fucking refreshing. I finally feel like the machines I built and own are mine again.
This is the way.
Task Manager is launched by the listener in winlogon if you use the Ctrl + Shift + Esc method though, right? I’m pretty sure you can still launch Task Manager, and from there attempt to relauch Explorer, even if Explorer is borked or not running. You’d just have to know how to do that and that you can.
That’s what I always do when Explorer’s ears inexplicably catch fire and I’m either too lazy or too naively hopeful to reboot.
For anyone following along at home, Windows Explorer is also responsible for displaying the start menu/taskbar. In the example in the article there’s something else funky going on inside Explorer, though, because the taskbar and even the desktop icons are all there, it’s just not rendering correctly. (Explorer is also responsible for showing all of your desktop icons.)
I wonder if win+r works to launch stuff and commands
Reads like a onion article
so they’re vibe cussing with uhhh what’s their stupid “AI” called… copilot?
actually makes some sense, any pilot Microsoft creates would be crash prone…
If Microsoft keeps breaking shit, companies will eventually look for alternatives.
Just think about what’s happening behind the scenes on Azure. I work with it daily and even it feels like a bloated slow mess.
Bloated servers. Now I’ve heard it all. Thanks for bringing that out, all we hear is ‘windows this and windows that’ but it seems the cancer in Microsoft has metastasized to everything.
It’s a ploy from Microsoft to push Copilot: you have to ask it to open the programs or folders you want. /s
Technicians are baffled how, even with an astounding 90% hallucination rate, this still was more reliable than windows search.
Perfect, you’ve got it, freeze the code base.
The link doesn’t work for me?
