Microsoft finally admits almost all major Windows 11 core features are broken

I am not a high level user, but have years of experience and rarely have difficulty with Windows 11. That said, I have begun to see things that hint at "too many problems and not enough time to solve them all". Case in point - 2025-12 Security Update. This update fails to install for the vast majority of users, and the instructions to get it to install will certainly challenge those same users. The update was not ready for prime time and the answer seemed to be "get it out there and we will fix it on the fly". No, users should not have to do a 'Light Reinstall' or even 'Full in-place repair from ISO' in an effort to install a half-baked Update. Slow down on the AI and refocus on the operating system or you may end up pushing users out the door.

Windows 11 keeps freezing up and restarting. it happened when I was adjusting display settings. Turning back on it enlarged the display larger than the screen. 

I went to reset the computer to factory reset. The bitlock key has letters in it. Windows won't allow me to type any letters. 

I think class action lawsuit for Windows 11 ruining my laptop. I thought they were smarter than this.

Gonna be straight to the point here, and keep in mind this is in no way shape or form any kind of slander of any sorts, this is a testimony of a chain of events that happened literally over the course of a month in my scenario, I understand milage may very for other people, but, this is just my input on the issue, It's not just enterprise or IT users. Me and my wife have PCs. Ones a custom build desktop, and the other is a 15.5" clevo notebook. The custom pc ran Windows 11 Home and has experienced these issues, and a few unique issues directly caused by those issues. Including corrupted SSDs and total OS failures. The laptop ran on Windows 11 Pro out of the box and started experiencing half of its available resources, literally, eaten up by Windows 11's core services, lagging me out of lightweight gaming sessions, followed up by these underlying core issues and eventual OS failures. Mind you both are gaming PCs and are very capable of just about anything you throw at em. These failures have happened multiple times, even after reinstall on top of reinstall. I even went as far as pausing updates only both machines as far out as Windows would let me, only to find that they still download and install anyway directly after pausing, I'm not entirely sure whats up with that, but, whatever. The point of the story, not just a specific group of people at all, thats pure PR damage control at its finest if I've ever seen it, and in my case afterwords, I said forget Windows 11, (I'm totally improvising on what I actually said, based off of pure frustration of wasted time and data loss, tech can litterally be a pain to work with sometimes.), installed Windows 10 on both, enrolled in the esu program, uninstalled the preloaded AI after the updates, reinstalled all of mine and the wife's programs and games, and haven't had a single issue since. It's not pure coincidence. The title is not over exaggerated. Windows 11 is unfortunately a complete dumpster fire for most people, and those very people are wishing MS didn't 86 Windows 10 support, Me and my wife are just 2 of the many people in that group.

So, I used the AI we love so much and it provided a sensible answer to this ^^

I asked "is this actually true? "Microsoft finally admits almost all major Windows 11 core features are broken""

The headline you quoted, "Microsoft finally admits almost all major Windows 11 core features are broken," appears to be a highly sensationalized and exaggerated title used in articles and discussions to report on a specific, but significant, technical problem Microsoft acknowledged.

Here's a breakdown of what the reports indicate:

The Admission: Microsoft did acknowledge a widespread issue affecting core Windows 11 components like the Start Menu, Taskbar, File Explorer, and System Settings.

The Cause: The issue is a specific bug related to XAML components failing to register correctly after certain cumulative updates, particularly those released on or after July 2025 (e.g., KB5062553).

The Scope: While the affected features are indeed "core," Microsoft indicated the problem primarily affects a limited number of enterprise or managed environments, especially those using non-persistent OS installations like Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) or installations where updates were applied before the first-time user login. It was less likely to impact personal home devices, though some individual users reported issues.

The Severity: For the affected users, the malfunctions were severe, resulting in issues like Explorer crashes, Start Menu failures, and the Taskbar not appearing. These are the problems that led to the "broken core features" headlines.

The Workaround/Fix: Microsoft provided temporary workarounds (like PowerShell scripts) for IT administrators and has been working on an official fix.

So, while Microsoft confirmed serious, widespread failures in fundamental parts of the OS (Start Menu, Taskbar, etc.) for a particular set of users and under specific conditions, the phrase "almost all major Windows 11 core features are broken" is an overstatement of the company's official admission and the overall state of the operating system for all users. It's a prime example of a dramatic headline emphasizing the severity of the bug rather than the technical nuance of the admission.

I've had zero issues, use win 11 every day on my work laptop, least every second night gaming. Dont seem to ever have any of these issues I see in these frequent click baity articles lately in fact. 

You know it's funny, guy created Linux recently said he believes Windows gets a lot of flak for "bad software", when it's people's hardware and their upkeep of it that are the problem. Just weird right. You'd think he'd say opposite given all these "news", blogs or w/e this is.

But this couldn't possibly be some form of astro turfing...right?

So who admitted it? do you have an actual M$ article? did M$ CEO said that? where is the proof? Don't just show me some KBs, You said "finally admits", where is the proof?

Hoping Microsoft decides to start fixing the OS and stops trying to push AI. Nobody I know wants AI. We just want a working OS that is complete and not missing the essentials. Home and corporate alike are ripping Copilot out. 

can you provide a link to further reading?

I spent 3 days trying to fix my hard drive which had 5tb of photos on it!  Windows 11 decided it didn’t like it any more and (I found out) removed all permissions!!  Including administrator!  I could access the drive by booting up my hyrens usb boot.  I copied all my photos over to my other external hard drive then set about finding answers!!!!  Ran a full chkdsk.. drive given the thumbs up.. but then found online that someone else had this problem!!  I had to go to secuity on the drive and re- admit administrator and everyone.  I was still denied access so I put in my user as an administrator (several times as windows kept spitting it out and going back to everyone which was still only allowed to see the photos, not open or edit them).  Finally I got my login to work and regained access.  Windows 11 still has an issue with E:/ drive.  I formatted the drive and restored all the photos again, bought another drive and copied them over to this one (another 2 days copying) , then put my original photo drive away for safekeeping.

I just had to roll back an update installed on December 5th today because it kept making my computer freeze up, no matter what I shut off during the boot process. I was able to boot up in Safe Mode but in "standard mode" Windows completely froze up after about 5 minutes.