Forum Discussion
Windows 11 having major issues after updates
I've been having this issue since October, when I install system updates, upon restart the taskbar is missing and the background is black. For whatever reason Steam is the only program open too. I am able to open task manager with ctrl+shift+esc and in the Windows processes it shows Windows Explorer as running and I am able to open an explorer window by right clicking the process and opening file location as well. After 5-10 minutes the taskbar and background appear and everything seems to be working. Problem is that my microphone is not working in any programs and when trying to access audio settings, either in a program or in the system settings, the program locks up and has to be killed in task manager. Same issue when attempting to access display or power in system settings. Also, when attempting to sign in to my Microsoft account on their website (one of the potential fixes pointed towards needing the BitLocker recovery key) my browser locks up and has to be killed in task manager.
I have been temporarily "fixing" the issue by uninstalling the update when Windows forces me to update every month. Today I ran into the issue of Windows being unable to uninstall the update. I know that it was a stupid "solution", but I naively thought that it might be resolved by the next update every time it happened, so I just kept with it.
Is a reinstall of Windows my only solution? If so can I use "Reset this PC" or do I have to manually do it from a USB. Also, to potentially avoid this in the future, is there a way to view a log of the startup processes to see if a program is causing these issues?
2 Replies
Not necessarily, but it might be the most straightforward way to eliminate persistent corruption or conflicts if other troubleshooting steps fail.
From the symptoms you describe (missing taskbar, black background, Settings freezing on audio/display/power pages, browser freezing when opening Microsoft account pages), this looks like a deeper system corruption affecting the Windows shell and several UWP components. At this point, uninstalling updates only hides the issue temporarily, and the fact that Windows can no longer roll back the update confirms that the component store is no longer healthy.
A repair install is the most reliable way forward.
- “Reset this PC” (Keep my files) This will reinstall Windows while keeping your personal data, but it will remove your applications. It’s usually enough to fix this kind of corruption.
- In‑place repair install using a Windows 11 ISO If you want to keep both files and applications, use an official Windows 11 ISO, mount it, and run setup.exe. This performs a full repair of system files, UWP components, and the component store without wiping your apps.
- Clean install from USB Only needed if the two options above fail.
To investigate what happens during startup, you can check:
- Event Viewer → Applications and Services Logs → Microsoft → Windows → Shell-Core / Explorer
- Event Viewer → Windows Logs → System
- Reliability Monitor (search “Reliability History”)
- Startup apps in Task Manager (Steam auto‑launch may indicate a startup hook or delayed shell initialization)
But given the extent of the symptoms, a repair install is the most time‑efficient solution.
