Worried about that taskbar-breaking bug seen in Windows 11 last month? Good news: it’s fixed in Microsoft’s latest update
Thankfully Microsoft has moved quickly in remedying this one
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The latest Windows 11update (for July 2024) has arrived packing a cure for a known issue whereby the taskbar was essentially broken (not for the first time this year).
Even though the bug had a limited impact, it certainly affected someWindows 11users when it wasfirst discovered in the previewof the latest cumulative update (released back at the end of June).
That preview update (KB5039302) was optional and therefore you could swerve it, but the fear for us (and no doubt others out there) was thatMicrosoftmight not get the bug sorted before this preview became a full release, which happened yesterday with patch KB5040442.
Thankfully, this new update – which will be compulsory for all Windows 11 users (though it can be delayed for a short while) – has the fix included.
In therelease notes, Microsoft observes that KB5040442 addresses a known issue whereby “you might not be able to view or interact with the taskbar after you install KB5039302 [the June preview update].”
Analysis: From reboot hell to taskbar trauma
As mentioned, the impact of the taskbar bug was limited. It only affected either those running a Windows N edition – a Windows 11 installation with media-related functionality stripped out (such as Media Player) – or people who had turned off ‘Media Features’ in Control Panel.
Still, that would certainly be someWindows 11 users, and having seen the bug pop up in the optional update last month – or maybe even directly experienced the taskbar going wonky if they downloaded the preview update – as we already observed, those folks might well have been concerned about installing this new July update. There’s no need to worry, though.
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All in all, this has been a bit of an odd one, mainly because the preview update for June was actually paused briefly after it was found to have abug that caused a reboot loop(a really unpleasant situation). Once that was remedied (by blocking affected devices), and the rollout resumed, this taskbar glitch was then discovered – so it wasn’t Microsoft’s finest update moment by any means.
There’s no mention of the reboot loop bug with the new July update, incidentally, so we assume that it remains blocked from all PCs that might potentially be affected. If you can’t see the cumulative update for July, this might be why. We assume that if it was also fixed, Microsoft would have mentioned that – though it’s possible a cure has been applied and left off the release notes.
ViaNeowin
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Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).
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