Be afraid of the Windows 11 KB5043145 optional update. Very afraid. For reports are in, claiming that it unleashes a borknado of problems if installed.
According to various sources, including HKEPC and Windows Latest, update KB5043145 for Windows 11 versions 23H2, and 22H2 is causing problems including outright bluescreen crashes, loss of keyboard and mouse functionality, USB ports on the blink, plus WSL 2 and Wi-Fi issues.
Windows Latest says that Microsoft has confirmed it is aware of the problem. However, there is no word on any official remedy, for now. As an optional update, KB5043145 is not supposed to download and install automatically, though some reports indicate that may be happening anyway.
Of course, losing your keyboard and mouse is particularly egregious as it makes any attempt to sort problems, including rolling back the update, that much harder. Some users are reporting that their systems are automatically entering Recovery Mode, which makes rolling back the update possible.
For others, getting into Recovery Mode has proved trickier with the loss of keyboard functionality. “Luckily, I discovered that disconnecting the power supply and then entering and exiting the BIOS first gave me the opportunity to press F8 and then I was able to access the recovery screen,” one user told Windows Latest.
The problem seems to be impacting a fairly wide range of hardware. Among the systems included in reports from users suffering faults from the update, Asus’s TUF A15 (2022) and ROG Strix G17 laptops, Intel NUC N6005 and N5105 models, unspecified Lenovo laptops and various AMD systems.
Anyway, the reports certainly touch on a pretty varied array of hardware, so this doesn’t seem like a glitch caused by an issue with a very specific component. Oddly, it seems the problems extend to visual weirdnesses including right-click context menus reverting to a Windows 10 style. “My context menu reverted to Windows 10 style, and I hate it,” one user said.
All of which does rather suggest that update KB5043145 is a bit of a mess and very much best avoided, for now. If you’re already installed the update, it seems like rolling back would be the prudent move until it becomes clear that the update has been refined. Windows Latest has a step-by-step guide for that, incidentally, at the bottom of their news post.
