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Updated my Windows 10 Home 22H2 machine with March patches and nothing seems to be amiss. In particular, the March CU (KB5038545) installed correctly, albeit slowly, without getting stuck.

As for my Windows 11 Pro 22H2 machine, given the reports of BSODs with the March CU (KB5035853) I have decided to hold off installation of that update and installed only the March updates for .NET 6.0 and MSRT. Those two updates were installed successfully and do not seem to cause issues.

Incidentally, I have spotted several users on reddit reporting that the ‘explorer.exe’ error from the February CU (supposedly suffered by systems with a gaming controller installed) was not fixed. However, of these users reported a workaround to solve the issue:

Not fixed yet for me but as the only effective workaround so far you can go to Services and Disable “GameInput” service, then Stop it and Reboot.

My Xbox controller and Wireless headset still work perfectly after the change and the error on shutdown is now gone.

I have not installed the update, but anyone having those ‘explorer.exe’ errors after the update might give the above suggestion a try.

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jburk07

The only particular piece of hardware I tried to hoard a few years ago was the IBM model M keyboard and I bought just one extra for safe keeping. While “ancient” by today’s standards, I was comfortable typing on this sturdy keyboard. I used a DIN6/PS2 adapter to plug it into a PS2 port, but finally abandoned it a couple years ago due to lack of a PS2 port on a (then) new computer. Keeping the Model M in use would have required me to look for a DIN6/USB adapter (do this kind of thing even exist?) or try my luck plugging a PS2/USB adapter into the DIN6/PS2 adapter and see whether that setup would work.

I have now settled on a Logitech G413 Carbon mechanical keyboard: typing experience is as good as (and possibly even better than) the Model M and the keys are a bit less loud. I’m not too fond of the red backlighting, but overall its looks are still sufficiently discreet for a gaming keyboard, enough that it does not look out place in a work place. The only complaint I have is that the ABS keycaps are not particularly durable and a few keys have peeled off by now: finding replacements looks unlikely, unfortunately. Ironically, Logitech released a newer version of this keyboard with more durable PBT keycaps, but to save on costs they replaced the switches with some cheaper knock-offs. As such, I don’t think I’ll buy multiple copies of the G413 Carbon for the time being and will likely look for something with more durable keycaps when the time comes.

Ok, went ahead and installed Feb patches, kind of. Installed without issues the .NET, .NET Framework and MSRT updates. However, since the issue concerning Windows 11 KB5034765 and Windows 10 KB5034763 on systems with a controller is pretty unclear (at least to me), I decided to take the calculated risk of skipping these updates on my W11 and W10 machines respectively. Hopefully, whatever is causing the Windows Explorer error will be fixed with the March CU.

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Cijan, LHiggins

It’s not that I don’t like innovations, but I vastly prefer a stable OS to one that keeps getting new features half of the users never asked and/or never cared for. I really wish there was a way to simply opt out from receiving new features and receive only security updates: that way I would be the one deciding if a new feature is interesting enough to let it install on my system.

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Myst, R, Cybertooth, Douglas, NaNoNyMouse

Is the warning that “Gamers using a controller on their Windows PCs may find that Windows Explorer fails to load the task bar after the installation of Windows 11 KB5034765” somehow connected to MS saying in the KB article that “This update addresses an issue that affects explorer.exe. It might stop responding. This occurs when you restart or shut down a PC that has a controller accessory attached to it“?

Does anyone know if disconnecting the controller before applying the update can help to avoid this issue?

That’s interesting, thanks. Looks like I’ll just have to keep (as per usual practice) a backup close at hand and see what happens when I let the update install once we get the “all clear” to install.

Thanks EP, I went through the whole forum topic, but I didn’t find anything of interest. Still, nobody reported issues with KB5034123 failing to install due to the recovery partition issue, so I take that as good news. Besides, I have no recovery partition at all on my Win11 machine, so hopefully that might help me skip the problem altogether.

For Windows 11 22H2 and 23H2, the vulnerability noted in CVE-2024-20666 is being patched as part of the cumulative windows update of KB5034123.

Does the above mean that those of us on Windows 11 22H2 or 23H2 might see the CU update KB5034123 fail to install because the recovery partition does not have enough free space/sufficient size? That would be quite annoying, because even if we decide to hide and skip KB5034123 the problem will manifest all over again with next month’s CU unless MS finds a fix that does not require users to mess with their partitions.

BTW, now I’m wondering if the problems seen by Win10 users with KB5034441 can also manifest when there is no recovery partition at all and thus if having no recovery partition on my Win11 machine actually places me in a better position than having one which is full/too small…

Thanks Paul, I had a suspicion that having a W11 bootable USB would be enough, but it’s good to have a confirmation!

It seems that users who do not have Bitlocker enabled may simply skip this patch, based on Susan’s input in her post:

Specifically with this patch, if you are not running Bitlocker, I would hide the update.

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creem

That was my same thought initially, but I noticed Susan mentions that:

Please note this issue is not as a result of untested patches – rather it’s a known issue and Microsoft expects us to deal with it.

That seems to suggest MS isn’t going to do anything to address this issue. As far as I am concerned, I’ll just hide this update and skip its installation.

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creem

Out of curiosity, what size should the Recovery Partition have to avoid this error? The Microsoft page discussing how to resize the partition (linked in Susan’s post) talks about “Manually resize your partition by 250 MB”, but I can’t understand whether those steps are meant to resize the recovery partition by adding 250 MB to its current size or whether they are meant to resize the partition to 250 MB.

BTW, the recovery partition on my Win10 machine is 784 MB in size and 100% free atm, in any case I simply plan to hide KB5034441 and skip this patch.

Maybe you already registered for your Gmail account by now, but if you have not and have concerns about privacy, as an alternative you might consider a free Proton Mail account.

It is an easy-to-use webmail service and, while you don’t get a huge amount of storage as with other providers, the 1GB mailbox still seems pretty spacious for most needs and as a plus it is supposed to have much more heightened privacy and security compared to what is offered by Google or Microsoft.

Really a quiet month, at least as far as Windows updating goes… Only had one single pending update on each of my computers, i.e. December CU. Updated successfully both my Windows 11 Pro 22H2 and Windows 10 Home 22H2 machines, no trace of HP Smart app on either computer after the update, but the Snipping tool made its appearance on the W10 machine. Also, no trace of Copilot on both computers, either it’s because EU policies are preventing dribbling out of Copilot or I simply haven’t been hit by the dribbling process.

Other than the above, I noticed that the W10 CU took considerably less time to install compared to the W11 CU, in spite of the fact that the W11 machine has newer, faster hardware and it is has a much “fresher” OS installation compared to the W10 machine (direct installation of W11 22H2 back in April vs original installation of earliest W10 version in early 2016 followed by multiple feature updates across the years): thought it would make more sense for the W10 update to be slower, but nope that’s not the case. At least, both updates required only one single reboot to install.

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jburk07

Yes, please let us know how to reenable “show desktop” when that change comes to Windows 11. Maybe this change is tied to Copilot and we will not see it as long as dribbling of Copilot is stalled in the EU, but it’s definitely good to know in advance what to do to reenable show desktop if/when it disappears. Thanks!

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Toa Of Justice, Mark