Windows Update KB4579311 causing explorer to crash repeatedly when logging in.

Hello SmellyFox,

I'm John an Independent Advisor and a Microsoft user like you. I'll be happy to assist you today. I understand you have a problem with explorer crash after installing KB4579311.

It would be best to temporary pause updates until a fix is release about the issue. You can pause updates up to 35 days by clicking "Pause updates" multiple times

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/man...

or to prevent the KB4579311 update from being reinstalled by Windows Update, use the “Show or Hide Updates” troubleshooter to hide the update. Window Update won’t install hidden updates.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/318392...

I would also recommend to send comments and suggestions about the issue through Feedback Hub App. Hopefully Microsoft will notice this and release a fix soon.

Kindly let me know if this helps or if you have any further concerns.

Sincerely

John DeV

Independent Advisor

Hi, I've been having an issue with Windows Update KB4579311. When it gets installed it causes the Explorer to crash repeatedly until it eventually logs me in, at which point I can use it as normal. BUT, the crashing increases time it takes to log in and load everything up. It's very annoying.

What I mean by crash is that the start bar flickers on and off, over and over and over. The desktop is black the mouse curser is visible. when you press ctrl alt del that screen stops flickering, when you return back to the desktop, flicker ahoy! you can see in the task manager that the explorer is stopping and starting over and over. You cant manually end the process becuase it's starting and stopping so fast that by the time you click the end process button it's already restarted and the instance of the explorer you tried to end no longer exists.

Uninstalling KB4579311 stops the issue but when it installs it's self again the issue returns.

I'm getting tired of repeating the same steps over and over to use my computer as intended.

This is shown in the event viewer:

Faulting application name: explorer.exe, version: 10.0.19041.546, time stamp: 0x89ce2e55

Faulting module name: ucrtbase.dll, version: 10.0.19041.546, time stamp: 0x43cbc11d

Exception code: 0xc0000409

Fault offset: 0x000000000007287e

Faulting process ID: 0x21e8

Faulting application start time: 0x01d6a45d9c54ed23

Faulting application path: C:\Windows\explorer.exe

Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\ucrtbase.dll

Report ID: 0fa45953-9e3f-4a5f-bafc-ee4c5229c9ca

Faulting package full name:

Faulting package-relative application ID:

What I'm looking for is a fix. Not a workaround.

Thanks

How did you remove it? I can't remove it, I right click on the update and I don't have the option to remove it.

Hi, navigate to the control panel. Add remove programs. Then on the left it should say "view installed updates".

Once there you should be able right click and uninstall, or click it once and then click the uninstall button that is revealed above.

When I first read this post I immediately tried to remove the KB using the menu in the photo above. That didn't work - the Uninstall option was there, but clicking it led to an error message that "not all of the update could be uninstalled." I then tried using an elevated CMD prompt and the wusa /uinstall /kb:4579311 command but this also didn't work - I got an error that the component store was corrupted.

At that point I went through all the steps using DISM and SFC to inspect, clean and repair the component store. Everything ran and was fixed. When I went back to run wusa again, this time the KB says it cannot be uninstalled as it is a part of Windows. Going back to the menu in the photo above, there is now no Uninstall option.

Next I ran Windows10Upgrade9252.exe to see if this issue could be fixed by a pre-release update. I was on 2004, now I'm on 20H2, but the problem still persists. I'm reluctant to do a Windows reinstall but fear that might be my only option now.

Anything else I can try?

Thanks for the post!

Had to uninstall Windows Update KB4579311 and issue with screen flickering (explorer repeatedly crashing) seems to be gone.