Microsoft said that the Windows 10 system updates that were released in late September caused a flash in the system taskbar and some programs were unstable.
“After installing updates released on or after September 20, 2022, this may cause taskbar items to flash and system instability,” the American tech giant said in a new version added to the Windows Health dashboard on Friday.
The company added that restarting affected devices may mitigate instability issues in some cases, but perhaps only on some affected systems.
The full list of affected Windows versions includes Windows 10 22H2, Windows 10 21H2, Windows 10 21H1, and Windows 10 20H2.
Microsoft mentioned some of the symptoms resulting from this problem, such as Weather or News and Interests icons flashing on the Windows taskbar, the Windows taskbar stopping responding, Windows Explorer stopping responding, or applications stopping, including Word or Excel stop responding if they open when the problem occurred.
Microsoft has addressed the problem with a Known Issue Rollout mechanism, which undoes the wrong non-security Windows fixes that come through Windows Update.
After a rollback, KIR fixes typically reach all consumer and unmanaged machines within 24 hours, with the option to speed up the process by restarting affected users’ computers.
IT administrators must install and configure KIR Group Policy to resolve system instability issues on affected devices that are managed by the organization.
It is noteworthy that last month, Microsoft released another emergency fix with the KIR rollback mechanism to address another issue that causes errors and causes the taskbar and desktop to disappear on Windows 10.
