This month's Windows 11 cumulative update is causing serious issues in some reported cases.
This is KB5035853 for Windows 11 23H2 and 22H2 which started rolling out earlier this week and introduces some useful new features. That includes being able to use the Snipping tool to edit photos from your Android smartphone right on your PC, plus adding support for much faster wired connectivity (80Gbps) with USB4 v2.0.
However, some Windows 11 users have had major issues installing the March Update, with Windows Latest highlighting them and the site experiencing a Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) after running the update process.
The tech site's BSoD came with an error saying “Thread stuck in device driver,” which isn't very helpful, and others have been affected by this issue, such as a reader running multiple Lenovo devices (on a Business environment).
Additionally, there is evidence of this nasty bug in the Reddit thread featuring KB5035853. One user tells us: “This update caused Windows to fail to start. I got a blue screen error. I had to back away. Just a warning. Does this happen to anyone else?
Someone chimes in to say that he was affected too (and that he was put in a boot loop, with repeated reboots, before ending up in that BSoD).
There are other reports in this thread that the update was installed, but then caused “random” BSoDs.
In addition to this, there are also people who complain that Windows 11 runs slowly, their PC stutters after the update, or even freezes periodically.
Analysis: Fix with one hand and break with the other?
These are some really nasty side effects here, and the solution so far seems to be to simply roll back the installation (by removing KB5035853 or using System Restore to go back in time to before the update was activated).
On Reddit, there is mention of a YouTube video offering possible solutions, and we've taken a look at it (in fact, there are a couple of clips), but we'd take the advice given with a pinch of salt. Some people in the YouTube comments reported success and others said the described fixes failed. But for now, rather than trying what seem like shots in the dark as cure attempts, if you are affected, we'll probably just roll back the update and wait for Microsoft to investigate these bugs.
(It's worth noting that there are also more complaints in the YouTube comments about PCs suffering from serious slowdown issues after the update.)
At the moment, Microsoft's support document for the March cumulative update indicates that there are no known issues.
The irony here is that this March update fixes an issue with the February update for Windows 11 where it failed to install (and was stuck at 96% with an error code and a helpful message saying that “something didn't work.” as planned”). . Therefore, the patch that fixes the problem that the previous patch could not be installed also does not install in a different and, in fact, worse way.
Hopefully, Microsoft will take up this case as we write this. It's hard to say how widespread the BSoD issue is, but there are certainly enough reports of post-install performance issues to suggest that something went wrong with KB5035853.
