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Windows IT

Windows 10 Still Having Problems With the Desktop and Taskbar (theregister.com) 68

Posted by msmash from the never-gonna-give-you-up dept.
Microsoft has fixed yet another problem in some versions of Windows 10, a bug that makes the taskbar and desktop temporarily vanish or causes the system to ignore you. From a report: According to Redmond, users "might experience an error in which the desktop or taskbar might momentarily disappear, or your device might become unresponsive." The issue affects PCs running Windows 10 versions 22H2, 21H2, 21H1, and 20H2, the company wrote on its Windows Health Dashboard. Microsoft didn't outline the exact cause but notes it was related to the KB5016688 220820_03051 cumulative update and later.

The software giant is using its Known Issue Rollback (KIR) feature -- which enables IT administrators to roll back the unwanted changes of an update -- to resolve the problem, adding that it could take up to 24 hours for the fix to reach non-managed business systems and consumer devices. Restarting the device may accelerate the timeframe. Organizations that use enterprise-managed devices can install and configure a special Group Policy by going to "Computer Configuration" and then "Administrative Templates" and "Group Policy name." If the resolution doesn't work, users can try restarting the Windows device, according to Microsoft. The latest fix comes after a number of other problems were resolved this week.
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Windows 10 Still Having Problems With the Desktop and Taskbar More

Windows 10 Still Having Problems With the Desktop and Taskbar

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  • Spooky (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DarkRookie2 ( 5551422 ) on Thursday November 17, 2022 @02:28PM (#63058808)
    They are putting in the extra ad bits needed for the 11 idiocy so it can put it in 10.

    • They are putting in the extra ad bits needed for the 11 idiocy so it can put it in 10.

      Don't you know...

      11 is better than 10 because...it goes to 11

  • MicroCrap (Score:3, Funny)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday November 17, 2022 @02:32PM (#63058828)

    What do you expect? They are the ultimate proof that a product does not have to be good to make you rich...

    • Re:MicroCrap (Score:4, Funny)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday November 17, 2022 @02:42PM (#63058858) Homepage Journal

      If I had a nickel for every time Linux had become unresponsive of my taskbar crashed, I'd probably have enough to buy a Windows license so it could do those things to me too

      • You must be using Fedora.

        • Well, I'm a dabbler and I've used almost everything, but the last time I used Fedora was version 6.somethingorother. 6.1.1? I'm an operating system enthusiast, I guess. Right now I am running Kubuntu on my desktop for compatibility reasons, Mint on my laptop but probably going to change that again, Debian-without-systemd on my Dockstar...

      • If I had a nickel for every time Linux had become unresponsive of my taskbar crashed, I'd probably have enough to buy a Windows license so it could do those things to me too

        You should have upgraded from Fedora 4 long ago if you expect to get the most out of newer hardware.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        You are talking about the windows manager here, not Linux. And you have a choice of window manager on Linux, did you know that? (Yes, no such choice at all on Windows, you are stuck with the crappy default...) There are better ones and worse ones, but _all_ allow you to launch applications and, except for a few defective applications made by people that do not understand the architecture, everything can be used pretty much with every window manager. The last crash or lockup I had with fvwm was about 10 year

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Excelcia ( 906188 )

      What do you expect?

      ...I expect to be able to choose my updates myself.

      From the article...

      The software giant is using its Known Issue Rollback (KIR) feature

      This should never be an issue. It's still possible, though you have to really fight the OS to do it, to disable automatic updates and vet them manually like you used to. This is a system we need to demand to go back to. Automatic updates have broken more systems than it has fixed.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        It's still possible, though you have to really fight the OS to do it, to disable automatic updates and vet them manually like you used to. This is a system we need to demand to go back to. Automatic updates have broken more systems than it has fixed.

        It depends on the system and the target demographic. Automatic updates should definitely be something that is easy to switch off, I agree on that. On a system aimed at non-experts and that is often run without competent system administration, they should also definitely be active as a default. The main issue with Windows is the generally low update quality and stability due to deficient software development and testing practices. I have run all my Linux systems with automatic updates every few days (includi

  • versions of Windows 10, a bug that makes the taskbar and desktop temporarily vanish

    It's called Windows 11. And I'm certain that by Windows 12 Microsoft will have found some other nefarious place to hide them.

    • No. Windows 11 redesigned the taskbar, from scratch, ... presumably because they couldn't fix this bug.

      • No. Windows 11 redesigned the taskbar, from scratch, ... presumably because they couldn't fix this bug.

        Is that what we're calling it? I thought they asked a kindergarten class what they wanted and built around the ideas.

        I still can't believe this is what Microsoft came up with. I'm sticking by my idea this is some elaborate long game joke.

  • Windows 10 Still Having Problems With the Desktop and Taskbar

    msmash 18 minutes ago 3
    Microsoft has fixed yet another problem in some versions of Windows 10

    Is it a problem, or is it fixed? The headline implies an ongoing problem, the first sentence clearly says MS fixed it...

  • My Windows 10 boots up fine. But when I get to the login screen, neither Mouse or Keyboard work.
    Safe Mode (sic) is the same.
    Good job Microsoft.

  • WIn10 100% Drive C Usage (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17, 2022 @03:30PM (#63059028)

    The problem I have with Win10 is that there is always some process taking 100% of Drive C throughput for 10 minutes after startup or coming out of sleep. It makes the PC unusable for a while.

    Sometimes it's indexing the drive, scanning for viruses, checking yet again if my PC can be upgraded to Win11, or doing some other checks.
    It's like playing whack-a-mole to fix the problem in the task scheduler settings; there's ten+ processes that can cause 100% disk usage. It doesn't seem to really fix the problem anyway.

    It's almost like MS doesn't know how to write a process that runs quietly in the background.

    • Actually it does run in background. As soon as you do anything on your machine indexing and malware scanning stops. Maybe consider that you may have an actual virus on your computer because your case certainly isn't the norm. The only time virus scanning thrashes the drive/CPU while you're using it is if it is initiated manually (thanks work IT department that fucks up my work every Wednesday). Also indexing large portions of the system isn't a continuous process. If it runs more than once after any major w

      • tbh, I've seen various rogue (but legitimate) processes gradually consume all of the available memory and cpu cycles on fresh installs

        as an end user, though clearly against IT policy, I just disable updates and learn to live with whatever bugs there are in the build of windows 10/11 that I have instead of having to learn to live with and identify new ones every few weeks when the downgrades // updates occur (and I only use office 2010 since there's no compelling reason to use a newer version... I still (and

        • The vast majority of Windows updates are for the benefit of enterprise customers and are of no value to the small user. If you practice good hygiene and wear a mask, you are unlikely to get a virus even if you don't update the last nonsense.

          • oh for sure, the chance that one would get a virus which a windows update would prevent is unlikely anyway unless you're some high level government/cia/fbi/sensitive industry individual in which case one should be using LTSB + security updates + all sorts of extra protections/etc.

      • Actually it does run in background. As soon as you do anything on your machine indexing and malware scanning stops.

        Yeah, that's what they said about the indexing service in every prior version of windows, but in every version of windows that has it, sometimes it malfunctions and makes the machine unusable so I always disable that fucker and use Everything.

      • I can get this happen consistently on a fresh install on 10. Just install it on a HDD.
        BOOM! 100% HDD usage with no read/write for a good solid 30 minutes. Slows the systems to a crawl. Installing software or using the computer doesn't stop it.

        And this is the latest and greatest from M$, and the latest drivers for the lappy, so it isn't Windows Updates doing it.

      • That what MS claims, but I've had plenty of personal experience with Windows doing "things" in the background, and it's almost always the indexing and TrustedInstaller doing it all.

        Don't even get me started on the trouble I've had with WindowsUpdate under Win7. Most of the time it was too stupid to update itself. If you didn't have the latest version of the update client installed, Windows would just sit there at 100% CPU usage, because it was unable to recognize whatever new hashing scheme MS was using o

        • It would eventually update if you left it alone. Updates on an unpatched Win 7 machine literally took a day to install because of the way they where checking which patches were required near the end of it's life.

          • No, it was definitely caused by WindowsUpdate being too old to update itself. Just trying to downloads the list of updates would take up 100% CPU time for an hour or two before it failed, probably due to a race condition. If you manually updated the WU agent to the latest version it worked fine and it only took a minute or two to get the patch listing even on a fresh install. Of course, MS didn't make updating the agent easy, because they kept creating new KB numbers for each new version and didn't have

      • Well, that's exactly the problem: configuration. Yes, when I have a problem it is typically because something is configured suboptimally. But what? There is really no way to troubleshoot these things in Windows; it's just trial and error and searching google in the hope that someone else spent the 100 hours necessary to understand this particular symptom.

    • Windows 10 has become largely unusable. Boot it up and it takes ... a long time. Log in... and it takes a long time. My wife booted up her Windows laptop a couple of months ago after leaving it off for a week or two and it took ALL DAY to boot up and login.

      Why did she not use it for a week or two? She uses Linux.

      I have a desktop that runs Windows with one required business program that only runs on Windows. I got tired of the long boots so I unplugged the network. It will not go back on the network, e

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Wolfrider ( 856 )

        > My wife booted up her Windows laptop a couple of months ago after leaving it off for a week or two and it took ALL DAY to boot up and login

        --If you /leave/ it that way, that's on you. Obviously it's time for a cleanup/defrag/reinstall, and maybe replace C: with a better SSD

    • Once I turned on a Win10 system that had been powered off for 3 months. It was locked up solid for 6 hours, and during that time I couldn't even launch Notepad. Oh, and that was with the Ethernet cable unplugged.

      I'm still running Win7 on my primary workstation. 8)

      Disclaimer: just yesterday, I had to reboot my Linux server, as something in Samba became unresponsive and only a restart fixed it. Nothing is perfect.

    • > The problem I have with Win10 is that there is always some process taking 100% of Drive C throughput for 10 minutes after startup or coming out of sleep. It makes the PC unusable for a while.

      Had to sit with a colleague earlier this week to set them up with a task and their PC was quite unresponsive. They said it is often like that.
      After stabbing at the keyboard and waiting a while the task manager popped open and I finally drilled in to find (if I remember) srtask.exe the most likely culprit.
      Well
  • It's almost like Microsoft doesn't need to care about customers. You are the product. You would think the government would do something about monopolies.

    • > You would think the government would do something about monopolies.

      Oh, bless your heart.

    • You would think the government would do something about monopolies.

      They did. They let Bill Gates and Microsoft off the hook after the USDoJ found that Microsoft under Bill had violated antitrust law in every possible way, so that Microsoft could continue to play its part in PRISM and other unconstitutional citizen spying programs as revealed by federal TLA whistleblowers like Manning, Snowden, and Winner.

      Microsoft being part of the panopticon is known fact. The rest is conjecture, but it fits the known facts.

  • Windows 10 can be a bit flaky. ESPECIALLY in multi-monitor.

    But Win11 is a goddamn nightmare.

    You have the usual crap like:
    You basically have to DRAG windows to full-screen in multi=monitor setups. Because it still treats each monitor individually.

    If using something like NVSURROUND to get a contiguous desktop, the taskbar breaks.

    with Win11, doing this ALSO offsets the desktop so the taxkbar falls off the screen. And I had to resort to a third party setup just to get it to work in a "Taskbar On Top" config.

  • All cloud, all sparkly ooh aah, very little in terms of solid fundamentals.

    It's telling that their enterprise unit basically said fuck it and integrated a linux vm out of the box into windows.

  • In his book "In The Beginning Was the Command Line", Neal Stephenson provided metaphors for the three main personal computing choices. Apple products were a sports car with the hood welded shut, Microsoft products were an old, rickety station wagon that leaked oil, and Linux was a large military tank. It sounds as though the oil is still leaking and the metaphor remains apt.

  • How is this news? (Score:3)

    by skogs ( 628589 ) on Thursday November 17, 2022 @11:10PM (#63060114) Journal

    How is this news in 2022? Pretty sure I've experienced this problem since 2000. Regularly pull up task manager with ctrl-alt-esc and manually start explorer.exe. 20 years this has been happening for a great many different reasons...but still...why is the story here?

  • I run my computer with Task Manager open quite a bit and any time my computer starts randomly running like shit the Microsoft Compatibility Telemetry service has my CPU usage pegged near 100%. It's causes my computer to run terrible for about 20 seconds then back to normal

  • ... Restarting the device may accelerate the timeframe. ...

    ... If the resolution doesn't work, users can try restarting the Windows device, according to Microsoft. ...

    I'll admit that I haven't been doing professional tech support in quite some time, so maybe this is just me and my old-school mindset or maybe I'm missing something that others would consider obvious... but these statements make it sound to me like the old tried-and-true, "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" advice is somehow viewed (at least by Microsoft) as no longer a reasonable suggestion. I can't fathom how anyone with a decent amount of experience in the tech sector could ever view this as an

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