Worried about that taskbar-breaking bug seen in Windows 11 last month? Good news: it’s fixed in Microsoft’s latest update

The latest Windows 11 update (for July 2024) has arrived packing a cure for a known issue whereby the taskbar was essentially broken (not for the first time this year).

Even though the bug had a limited impact, it certainly affected some Windows 11 users when it was first discovered in the preview of the latest cumulative update (released back at the end of June).

That preview update (KB5039302) was optional and therefore you could swerve it, but the fear for us (and no doubt others out there) was that Microsoft might not get the bug sorted before this preview became a full release, which happened yesterday with patch KB5040442.

Thankfully, this new update – which will be compulsory for all Windows 11 users (though it can be delayed for a short while) – has the fix included.

In the release notes, Microsoft observes that KB5040442 addresses a known issue whereby “you might not be able to view or interact with the taskbar after you install KB5039302 [the June preview update].”

Analysis: From reboot hell to taskbar trauma

As mentioned, the impact of the taskbar bug was limited. It only affected either those running a Windows N edition – a Windows 11 installation with media-related functionality stripped out (such as Media Player) – or people who had turned off ‘Media Features’ in Control Panel.

Still, that would certainly be some Windows 11 users, and having seen the bug pop up in the optional update last month – or maybe even directly experienced the taskbar going wonky if they downloaded the preview update – as we already observed, those folks might well have been concerned about installing this new July update. There’s no need to worry, though.

All in all, this has been a bit of an odd one, mainly because the preview update for June was actually paused briefly after it was found to have a bug that caused a reboot loop (a really unpleasant situation). Once that was remedied (by blocking affected devices), and the rollout resumed, this taskbar glitch was then discovered – so it wasn’t Microsoft’s finest update moment by any means.

There’s no mention of the reboot loop bug with the new July update, incidentally, so we assume that it remains blocked from all PCs that might potentially be affected. If you can’t see the cumulative update for July, this might be why. We assume that if it was also fixed, Microsoft would have mentioned that – though it’s possible a cure has been applied and left off the release notes.

Via Neowin