After installing feb cumulative update on win11, taskbar missing, major slowness, graphic glitches, explorer crashing.

Question

Some of our windows 11 laptops have had an issue with the feb cumulative update (so we think) Once it seems to go through and reboot, the user logs in and their taskbar/start menu is missing, every other process is very slow or crashes on launch (explorer/vpn/cmd). Other odd symptoms are missing folder under C:, like windows folder, users, etc. They are there if you manually put in file path or use CMD. But just not showing up in explorer gui.

Tried DISM and sfc /scannow - no change

then tried dism with a new ISO/Wim as the source dism never started.

after scouring the internet for other solutions I tried logging in as local admin and that profile worked fine. I checked for updates, and windows downloaded/installed feb cumulative update again. Rebooted > user logged in > taskbar is back and no more slowness/crashing.

What could cause this?

side note: on the first laptop this happened on I just repaired windows completely from new ISO. That also worked but took almost 30 hours.

Answer 1

Hi Kevin.schwartz NIH,

it is possible that the update did not install correctly, causing the missing taskbar/start menu and slow/crashing processes.

One solution you tried was to use DISM and sfc /scannow, but it did not work. Another solution you tried was to log in as a local admin, and that profile worked fine.

It is recommended to check if there are any pending updates and install them. You can also try to uninstall the Feb cumulative update and then reinstall it.

If the issue persists, you may need to perform a repair installation of Windows 11 using an ISO file.

Kind regards,

Lei

Answer 2

might be your profile is corrupted

Answer 3

Yea, logged in as local admin and there wasnt an issue on that profile. The thing is, after re-installing feb cumulative update (and after dism/sfc) the users profile seems to be back to normal. So doesnt really appear to be a corrupt profile exactly. I would say only like 5 percent or less of our systems had this issue but still very disturbing. Especially since there does appear to be data loss on a few of them. All from a usual monthly update from microsoft.

Answer 4

The issue seems to stem from a corrupted user profile or incomplete update installation. Logging in as the local admin likely reset the update or repaired the user environment. Reinstalling the update, resolved the issue. Repairing Windows from a new ISO is a more extensive but effective solution if simpler fixes fail.

Answer 5

Must read and share your experience.