Hello there! Or, maybe not this time around! In a development that Obi-Wan Kenobi would certainly not be proud of, there are reports that the Windows 11 2022 Update is breaking down Windows Hello.
This is another feature that the first feature update for the OS is not playing nicely with.
And Microsoft itself has confirmed this.
According to the software giant’s latest, users of the 22H2 release could experience problems with Windows Hello authentication. The various sign-in methods for the feature, such as face recognition, fingerprint, or regular PIN, may not work as intended.
Redmond makes clear that this new bug affects folks who set up Windows Hello before installing the Windows 11 2022 Update. The problem will not surface for those who have enabled Windows Hello after upgrading to this newest version of Windows 11.
But there is a bit of a silver lining amidst all this if you will.
That is the fact that botched Windows Hello does not result in users being fully locked out of their systems. Windows 11, as you can imagine, falls back to Microsoft Account or those good old offline account passwords if it finds the feature unavailable.
That said, Microsoft has applied a compatibility hold to protect users from what is a frustrating experience. Affected systems will not get the Windows 11 2022 Update until the company provides a permanent fix to this pesky problem.
There is a timeline for when that will happen. Microsoft plans to remove the safeguard sometime in the middle of October 2022, but you can expect the bugfix to arrive in the Patch Tuesday updates that arrive today.
The good thing is that you can bypass this particular problem by installing KB5017389, which the keenest mind among you may recall is the first optional cumulative update that the company is testing for Windows 11 22H2.
Nevertheless, Windows Hello has joined the growing list of known issues in Microsoft’s latest operating system. That is why it might be better not to force the update, wait it out, and stay on the initial version of the OS until the company gets a better handle on things.
