A Windows Update Broke Login Button, and Microsoft's Advice is To Click Where It Used To Be (tomshardware.com) 73
Microsoft has acknowledged that a recent Windows preview update, KB5064081, contains a bug that renders the password icon invisible on the lock screen, leaving users to click on what appears to be empty space to enter their credentials.
The issue affects Windows Insider channel users who installed the non-security preview update. The company's suggested workaround is straightforward if somewhat absurd: click where the button should be, and the password field will appear. Microsoft said it is working to resolve the issue.
The issue affects Windows Insider channel users who installed the non-security preview update. The company's suggested workaround is straightforward if somewhat absurd: click where the button should be, and the password field will appear. Microsoft said it is working to resolve the issue.
"Microsoft said it's working to resolve the issue" (Score:3)
Re:"Microsoft said it's working to resolve the iss (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the beta build. So it IS the QA/QC testing. A total nothingburger story.
Re:"Microsoft said it's working to resolve the iss (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Microsoft said it's working to resolve the iss (Score:5, Insightful)
But a human is needed to do the login for QA.
A script will click where it expects the password to be required to log in.
PASSED
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This is the beta build.
Exactly. Problems like this should be discovered long before a Beta release. This isn't some kind of esoteric corner case.
So it IS the QA/QC testing.
Translation: Microsoft has outsourced its QA to volunteers.
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Translation: Microsoft has outsourced its QA to volunteers.
You mean MS has outsourced QA to AI. I would think volunteers would have found that issue quickly.
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The volunteers are those in the "Insider" program -- downloading and running Beta software.
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A total nothingburger story.
Totally. This is the kind of "Bug found in QC/QA test version of software" headline you'd get from www.totallyexpectedtohappen.com.
WTF Slashdot? I'm all for raging against Microsoft's corporate hegemony cesspool but this is just fucking stupid.
Re: "Microsoft said it's working to resolve the is (Score:2)
No, what's fucking stupid is that Microsoft clearly has no meaningful automated testing for these patches before they send them to "Insiders".
What's almost as stupid is defending their incompetence for free.
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what's fucking stupid is that Microsoft clearly has no meaningful automated testing for these patches
Remember that these are the people who invented the use of CTRL-ALT-DEL hardware interrupts to "secure" the Windows login screen. That tells you all you need to know really.
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Remember that these are the people who invented the use of CTRL-ALT-DEL hardware interrupts to "secure" the Windows login screen. That tells you all you need to know really.
Yes, they should have done it the right way instead!
Err, what was the right way? It's not obvious to me, given that Microsoft doesn't have design control over the hardware its software runs on.
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An automated test is unlikely to flag user-interface changes of any sort - especially a "minor" color change (the button is still there and operational... just the color has changed to match the background - my bet is it has something to do with light/dark mode and the dark mode color scheme was used). It is rather surprising that nobody noticed that the login button was gone - it probably means most internal manual testers (I assume that they still have a handful) probably have auto-login set to speed up t
Re: "Microsoft said it's working to resolve the is (Score:2)
You cant fire someone for following current company policy.
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"even one time"
Unless you never use a password, in which case, you log in via all the other available options BUT password. You don't notice it missing. Passwords are so 1980s, get with the program.
I don't use biometrics because .. lets just say they are their own version of compromised. You cannot be compelled to give up your Password (legally) (hammer method is still valid) but a fingerprint, face ID etc that doesn't require you to speak can be compelled. I have no idea why people think it is "more secure
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Re:"Microsoft said it's working to resolve the iss (Score:5, Interesting)
The QA/QC team are probably like me legitimately asking "there's a button"?
No I'm serious... I haven't seen a logon button since Windows XP. I mean I'm sure it's there, but who doesn't just type in their password / pin and then hit enter?
Re: "Microsoft said it's working to resolve the is (Score:2)
I have autologin enabled, you insensitive clod !
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> who doesn't just type in their password / pin and then hit enter
Many, many people. They have been trained to use the mouse for everything. Og see button, Og click with mouse.
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While I'm with you in general there's a few points to make here: The vast majority of Windows 11 users log-in via PIN - Microsoft nags you to do so quite hard. When login via Hello is enabled there's literally no button press required, on successful entry of the PIN it auto-logs on. If you have at any point enabled windows Hello then there simply is no button. (Fun fact I just double checked this,... I can't even not login via PIN now... Not without going through the "I forgot my PIN" prompts).
And on top of
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Translates to = "Working to fire whoever let this hit without QA/QC testing"
Unlikely that they'll change their LLM provider again, they only recently switched from OpenAI to Claude.
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Paging Dr. Jones? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Paging Dr. Jones? (Score:4, Funny)
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*Monitor and desk starts shaking.*
"Oh, shi....."
Does anyone know what "preview" means? (Score:2)
Much as I hate to defend Microsoft, if this is an update that's clearly marked as a "preview" or "testing", then it shouldn't be a shock if it breaks since that's the purpose of doing a test release.
Re:Does anyone know what "preview" means? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I can't see any good reason for a button text/bitmap/whatever being separated from its action area.
Oh, wait ? Something to do with those web based user interfaces and/or flat design (by the way, a flat design button where only the text is consi
Re: Does anyone know what "preview" means? (Score:2)
It's Tomshardware they've turned into a total dumpster fire in the last few years. They even recently added subscriptions. The site is the poster child for enshitification.
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If it made the news, I'm *assuming* it is quite a common issue.
A common issue in a key part of the system.
If your QA team doesn't even log in to the system using most methods while testing, why do you have it? Logging in is functionality 101.
If they hadn't had so many fuck ups in the recent past, I'd be lenient too. But this is becoming a farce.
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It's actually pretty understandable.
Despite the meme power of a broken login, the bug affects a fallback feature you might well go years without using.
It requires you have PIN/Touch sign in enabled; which if you've enabled that, that means that is how you normally login.
And that works just fine. Nothing is broken there.
What is missing is a "password" icon in the 'fallback' options to "sign in a different way" (using a password, e.g., instead of a PIN or fingerprint.)
So despite being on the login screen, its
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Depends on what "preview” means. If it means an alpha build meant to be internal, such a bug is fine. To me this build was meant to be shown and tested by customers and closer to a beta build. Nothing ruins testing like the inability to test anything.
One time my company was asked to test some software for a supplier. The software would not run after install on any of our computers. There were no errors displayed to give us hints about what could be wrong. Despite weeks of correspondence with their d
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I'd expect better from a company with more internal Devs who can test prior to public preview.
I think the general impression is that it looks like there's little or no internal testing.
They are using AI to code core Windows functions (Score:5, Insightful)
Having people check the AI code at slop doesn't really work because the entire point of AI coding is to do it fast and cheap so there's going to be enormous pressure to do as little checking as possible.
Not that it matters. Microsoft has a monopoly. Any viable competitor will simply get taken out by well-known and well understood anti-competitive tactics. And because we refuse to enforce those laws because we refuse to vote for politicians who will enforce those laws Microsoft can basically do whatever they want. With the occasional bribe to some of the larger governments that might try to regulate them.
I think Europe is actually trying to quit the habit but I don't think they will be able to. I can tell you right now that there is no alternative for Microsoft Excel when you're doing large complex spreadsheets. Open offices nice but it just doesn't cut it. Some of that's because of shitty little patents Microsoft has but the system is designed to let them keep generating new patents that make it difficult to compete. And some of it is just that it's rough going writing office software so it's tough to compete with someone who can pay people to do that kind of boring dreary work.
And of course you have the aforementioned anti-competitive tactics that work like a charm.
I'm not even going to say we need to decide what's more important, software freedom or whatever bullshit that makes us vote for pro corporate anti-capitalist political candidates (and mark my words pro corporate is just as anti-capitalist as any socialist or communist just in a different direction)
It doesn't matter what the reasons are the end result is we don't enforce laws.
Re:They are using AI to code core Windows function (Score:4, Insightful)
I can tell you right now that there is no alternative for Microsoft Excel when you're doing large complex spreadsheets.
If you need accuracy then you shouldn't be using Excel especially if it's complex. It's just plain unmanageable. I've wasted too many hours fixing peoples errors to even begin explaining why here...
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Do you really think Karen in Finance is going to request an RDS instance and vibe code a nice react frontend for her CRUD??
At this point, my biggest fear is that she will -- and then call me over to debug the AI-generated codebase, when it inevitably doesn't work quite right.
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I guess what I am saying is the answer to, there isn't a tool that can do what the customer wants to do, should not be, tell the customer to knock it the fuck off.
Antitrust is mostly how Microsoft stays in power but they do one thing. It's c
Short! (Score:3)
MS stock is only down 1% today. Still time to get in.
They claim to use AI for 30% of their coding. If they had even one person QC this build, this would have been caught. You can't log in to test without hitting this bug.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/2... [cnbc.com]
If this is the future, we're all in trouble. And yes. I run Ubuntu, but none of my corporate programs run on Ubuntu. I have to use MS. As does most of the world.
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Well, the house of cards they have build is crumbling. Absolutely no surprise.
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If this is the future, we're all in trouble.
If this is the future I'm going back to bed. Having a pointless button not appear on an OS is about the least alarming thing about our current timeline. I wish we lived in a time boring enough that I had a fuck to give over this.
By the way the majority of Windows 11 installs haven't had a password prompt for a long time, thanks to Microsoft forcing you to setup a Microsoft account and then immediately enabling Hello logins (no button was ever shown to the user when entering a PIN, fingerprint, or face login
Why does WIndows password field need focus? (Score:1)
Would it be so very very hard for a Microsoft engineer to get an AI to write code to check any characters input anywhere in the screen against the password and allow access on a match ?
ran into this (Score:2)
I have a user where this happened and I figured out to direct him to click where the icon used to be. Though we manage Windows Updates through WSUS and we don't push out Preview patches, go figure. I don't want to be Microsoft's QA team.
Alternate headline (Score:5, Funny)
renders the password icon invisible on the lock screen, ... click where the button should be
"Microsoft takes Security Through Obscurity too far."
AI QA (Score:2)
It is funny you all think humans do QA for Microsoft these days.
And how many people use a mouse to click the login button instead of just pressing enter.
I have a better idea (Score:3)
Yes, but... (Score:2)
There is no "login" button on the command line, so Windows users are confused...
That's a "It works on my system" bug (Score:2)
Well, they can't test everything (Score:2)
Software is hard.
Times are tough.
We all have to do our part.
Windows 11: Click Where the Functionality Once Was (Score:2)
Vibe coding (Score:2)
How's that vibe coding working out for you Microsoft? This is simply beyond enshitification.
Use AI to write code, they said... (Score:2)
It will be fine, they said...
- Hey, AI! Pimp my login button.
- Alright, mate. But you haven't said it can't be transparent!
That's nothing. (Score:2)
B6 (Score:2)
Miss.
Just press "Enter" (Score:2)
... like a normal human being
I Am Not a Smart Man, But I Know What Shit Is (Score:2)
It is like my mamma always said, life is like Microsoft Windows, you never know what you gonna get; but chances are, it will be a bunch of unstable, poorly-coded ass candy.
My effeminate yet inexplicably brilliant son (my kinda whorish wife was no scholar either so I do not know where he got it from) installed Linux on all our computers, and I use it to buy shoes on the Internet, but now I cannot run my games. I was getting good at shooting motherfuckers but now all I can do is run.
When I tell people I run L
windows is dead (Score:2)
Open source the good bits to wine and reactos.
Focus on your Azure Linux cloud platform.
I have this problem with Slashdot (Score:2)
I do a lot of browsing using Seamonkey, and that browser cannot handle some fairly recent changes to Javascript. Most Slashdot functions don't need them but the login process does. I logon there by moving the cursor just to the SE of the "Submit" button, then slowly North until my logon appears. After that I'm home free.
A new MS security feature !! (Score:2)
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I guess it "was good enough to release." (Score:2)
Too bad Microsoft fails to understand UAT and smoke testing.
And then they wonder why so many people disable updates.
haha microsoft (Score:2)
Why any private (not enterprise) user would leave windows update turned on once they have a stable system is beyond me.