Microsoft has confirmed that those sticking to Windows 10 and not planning to upgrade to Windows 11 might experience weird taskbar behaviors after installing some of the recent cumulative updates. No, it is not a punishment for not upgrading to Windows 11—it is another known bug Microsoft will fix in future updates.
Microsoft says the issue causes visual glitches and reduces system stability, making some parts and apps unresponsive. If you use Windows 10, you might experience the following symptoms:
- The Weather or News and Interests widget or icons flickers on the Windows taskbar
- The Windows taskbar stops responding
- Windows Explorer stops responding
- Applications including Microsoft Word or Excel might stop responding if they are open when the issue occurs
According to a post in the official Windows documentation, a system restart might help mitigate the problem. However, Microsoft has decided to take a more proactive approach and undo the damage using the Known Issue Rollback feature. It will take care of the bug without any input from users, but the system might take up to 24 hours to propagate and heal the affected computers (all Windows 10 consumer versions starting with 20H2 and up).
The software giant promises to release a permanent bugfix with future cumulative updates.