Gotcha! Microsoft has confirmed that it has fixed the Safe Mode bug in Windows 11. This was a pesky and peculiar issue that caused certain windows to flicker when in the OS’s safe mode.
Interestingly, the company did not turn to another update to fix this problem.
Instead, it made use of a whole different solution.
In an advisory published on April 29, Redmond confirmed that File Explorer, Start Menu, and Task Manager were all impacted by screen flickering. The company also confirmed that a previous cumulative update shipped to Windows 11 was to blame for the whole fiasco.
As explained:
“After installing KB5012643, devices starting in Safe Mode might show a flickering screen. Components that rely on Explorer.exe, such as File Explorer, Start Menu, and Taskbar, can be affected and appear unstable. Devices experiencing this issue can log a System error on the Windows Event Log, with Source “Winlogon” and the following description: “The shell stopped unexpectedly and explorer.exe was restarted.”
Sounds serious.
According to the company’s information, this error affected only Windows 11 21H2. Users of other versions of the operating system need not worry.
Microsoft used a KIR to implement the fix for this problem:
“This issue is resolved using Known Issue Rollback (KIR). Please note that it might take up to 24 hours for the resolution to propagate automatically to consumer devices and non-managed business devices. Restarting your device might help the resolution apply to your device faster. Enterprise-managed devices that have installed an affected update and encountered this issue can resolve it by installing and configuring the special Group Policy listed below.”
No input is required on the user side, as the fix is implemented via the Known Issue Rollback system that the software titan has been using for quite some time now.
Full instructions on how to configure a special Group Policy to resolve the glitch are available here.
