Whenever switching a tab or window, the screen becomes like a scratch ticket?

Question

The past couple of days, I've noticed that randomly whenever I switch into another tab, application, or make any sort of display change, my screen will glitch in a way where the change does not appear. When I move the cursor, then tab will "reveal" itself, similar to that of a scratch ticket. The screen display will fix itself after a few seconds. This issue does not seem to apply to tabbing into and out of full screen applications so far. I've tried to restart my computer, but it did not resolve it.

My computer had an update recently, which seemed to have reset many of my settings and changes I've made. This issue started to arise right after that. One of my family members is experiencing the same issue, but only in their discord.

Issue will not appear in a screen recording nor a screenshot.

Answer 1

The past couple of days, I've noticed that randomly whenever I switch into another tab, application, or make any sort of display change, my screen will glitch in a way where the change does not appear. When I move the cursor, then tab will "reveal" itself, similar to that of a scratch ticket. The screen display will fix itself after a few seconds. This issue does not seem to apply to tabbing into and out of full screen applications so far. I've tried to restart my computer, but it did not resolve it.

My computer had an update recently, which seemed to have reset many of my settings and changes I've made. This issue started to arise right after that. One of my family members is experiencing the same issue, but only in their discord.

Issue will not appear in a screen recording nor a screenshot.

It's a issue with windows 11 i've noticed since I updated from 10. Just try to downgrade until their lazy workers fix this issue in a couple of years.

Answer 2

Hello，Lanfie

Welcome to posting in the Microsoft Community.

I understand that whenever you switch tabs, windows, or make display changes, the screen fails to display the content properly, similar to a “scratch ticket” effect.

Based on your description of the screen display, which is very typical of graphics rendering problems caused by graphics card driver incompatibility, let me offer you some suggestions for you and your family members to try.

Ⅰ. Go to the official website of the computer brand manufacturer and use tools such as DDU to completely remove the current driver and its residual files and registry entries to avoid problems caused by incomplete driver updates or file conflicts. Thus providing a clean base for new driver installation. In addition, besides using the latest version of the graphics card driver directly, it is recommended that you install several older versions of the driver to try them out separately. This is because while the latest driver covers some performance enhancements and new feature support, it may also cause unstable performance due to new feature changes or lack of optimization.

Ⅱ. If you are using Edge browser or most other browsers, there is a hardware acceleration function in the setting options, please turn it off, which may avoid the conflict with the graphics card driver. If you are using Edge browser you can try the following steps.

• Click on “...”. In the upper right hand corner of your browser, click on “Settings”, type in “System and Performance” and turn off “Use graphics acceleration when available”.

III. You can try to uninstall the update and rollback your system to the previous version to troubleshoot the problem caused by the system update and wait for the graphics driver update afterwards or after the problem is fixed to perform the update.

1. System built-in rollback button

• Please click on “Start > Settings > System > Recovery” and you will see a “Back” option on this page, click on it if it's available.

2. Using System Restore Points

• Type Control Panel in the bottom search bar, then select “Recovery > Open System Restore > Next”, select the restore point before the system update, and then select Next > Finish.

3. Restoring the environment through WinRE

• Click the Start button in the bottom left corner of the screen and select Settings.
• In the Settings window, click on “Update & Security” and in the left menu, select “Recovery”.
• In the Advanced Startup section, click the Restart Now button. This will restart your computer and take you to the advanced startup options.
• From the options that appear, select “Troubleshooting > Advanced Options > Uninstalling updates”.

After you refer to the above steps, you can share some information in this thread and I will answer your questions further. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation!

Best Regards，

Rota|Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 3

Thank you!

I NEVER would have thought to check the hardware acceleration thing. That screen flicker was killing me!

Answer 4

I'm having the same issue after a clean windows installation. Didn't have this issue in the old version.
Using an amd rx 7900 xtx if it matters.
Don't have an option to restore since its a clean installation.

Answer 5

I literally just got this laptop like JUST.