[German]Microsoft has released its Windows 11 23H2 Update (23H2) as of October 31, 2023. Interested consumers with compatible machines can pull the update to unlock the feature on a running Windows 11 22H2. Given the release date, I had jokingly dubbed it the "Halloween Update" (to be creeped out). Now the first users are chiming in with reports of problems Windows 11 23H2 is causing them. Is nothing that occurs widely, but is annoying for those affected. And Microsoft has "admitted to a jumping icons problem".
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Windows 11 23H2 Update released
I had reported in the blog post Windows 11 2023 Update (23H2) released about the new release. The new features have long been installed via update to Windows 11 22H2, but not enabled. Only the enablement update KB5027397 causes the unlocking. From this point of view, I didn't really expect anything dramatic in terms of bug reports from the user community. At least nothing compared to the previous Windows 10 feature updates, which had to be withdrawn after hours due to massive errors. But users are annoyed by installation errors and BlueScreens.
Anyway, in my test environment in a virtual machine running Windows 11 22H2, an update search doesn't offer me anything from Enablement Update KB5027397. German blog reader Tom had contacted me earlier today and wrote that Windows 11 23H2 cannot be installed on older hardware that was purchased more than two years ago. He suspects that it will go more and more like Apple, and Microsoft will pull back on special hardware that runs Windows. He also guesses that these will no longer be x86 machines, but ARM machines.
A collection of issues
In the last few hours, some problems related to Windows 11 23H2 have already come to my attention.
Surface Laptop 4 drops BSOD
Tero Alhonen could not resist the temptation to update his Surface Laptop 4 – yes, that is from Microsoft – to Windows 11 23H2 via Windows Update. The compatibility check must have released the upgrade, and now the user is being maltreated with BlueScreens, as he writes in the following tweet.
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His comment beforehand was that the Surface Laptop 4 was probably not among the first devices to receive the update.
More reports about problems
Meanwhile, at Windows Latest, there is this post that gives an outline of various bug reports. Some users have the problem that the Enablement Update KB5027397 cannot be installed and the process ends with errors 0x800f081f, 0x8007007e, 0x8000ffff, 0x800f0984 and 0x80073701. On reddit.com, for example, there is this thread where such installation errors are described.
Neowin.net reports similar errors in this post and also refers to Microsoft's Feedback Hub. The installation also freezes for some people. And they mentions, that some user sees a rollback of the update install – but the rollback didn't work for some users. The article refers to this reddit.com post, where somebody wrote "It's in install, reboot, fail, rolling back, reboot, updating, failure, rollback loop right now." beschreibt.
Windows Central writes in this article that other users are running into performance issues while playing games after upgrading to version 23H2. Any of you experiencing problems with Windows 11 23H2?
Explorer issues
In this comment, a German blog reader complains that the Explorer bug described there still exists.
Addendum: Peter has reported in this German comment that Explorer is on strike. As I understand the comment, Explorer starts, the display goes black, then the desktop comes up, but no Explorer window is visible. Could be an incompatible shell extension or a graphics driver problem.
Jumping icons confirmed by Microsoft
Microsoft has confirmed an unsightly bug in the "Known Issues" for update KB5031455 that can occur with multi-monitor operation. Microsoft writes that systems using more than one monitor may experience problems with desktop icons unexpectedly shifting between monitors or other icon alignment issues. This only occurs when users try to use the preview of Copilot in Windows 11 23H2 (should not affect European users, since Copilot is not enabled there).
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lost all of my data with the update….all of it! Blue screened me. when if came back up everything was gone!
I am having wifi speed issues after the 23H2 update, and System>Recovery says I no longer can roll the update back even though it was yesterday that 23H2 was installed by Windowsx Update. My wifi speed is so reduced that I barely have 1 down 0.06 up reported by Speedtest on my desktop machine, even though smartphones connect to same connection on my router and Speedtest will report 75 down and 76 up. Desktop was the same as the smartphones before the update to 23H2. I can barely make this report at the current speeds.
Wow Lost All Your Data! Yikes….sometimes thing go South badly I guess…luckily on my PC it said there was this update but it just won't get it..fails LOL so maybe I'm lucky now I suppose!
Na de update heb ik plotseling niet meer 8 GB RAM maar slechts 4GB, bovendien heb ik plotseling Windows 11 PRo terwijl ik de Home-versie had.
That's strange – never heard that.
Well, its clear Microsoft is more concerned with pushing out these releases for their feature improvements then actually making a Windows release stable. Their priorities have been all messed up for some time now. Do I care about Copilot if the rest of Windows is fucked up? No.
Yup
In my case, the 23H2 update installed, but then did not unlock the new features. It is as if I had never installed it. Deleting the update and reinstalling did not help.
23H2 has been extremely frustrating. The upgrade I did from Windows 10 two years ago was more stable than a clean install of 23H2. Constant freezes doing almost everything.
Microsoft now works for the Govt and their only concern is spying on YOU.
I've done the update on my laptop, had multiple issues:
Firstly, the wi-fi stopped working just hours after update, and some applications like Google chrome crashed continuously.
I had to reinstall the windows.
Couple of weeks, everything was fine, now again Chrome is crashing, Microsoft Word is crashing.
When i made the update i suddenly couldnt play many of my games, they just crashed on startup as my CPU Usage will thrust to 100%. Hope it will get fixed, or ill switch back to Windows 10
Updated on both desktops and will not allow me to open any apps or type with the keyboard- can right click on everything but nothing will open. Will try to roll back tonight to see if it works.