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Isaiah Williams

Ever update and shut down your Windows 11 PC, and it restarts instead? Yeah, you're not seeing things – Microsoft confirms it was a bug

A man typing on a Windows 11 laptop.
  • Microsoft confirms 'update and shut down' causing PC restarts was a bug
  • Its latest preview fixes the issue that has long plagued Windows 10 and Windows 11 systems
  • Unfortunately, the preview that fixes the issue has a Task Manager bug that eats up system resources

It's another week, and another focus on Microsoft's Windows 11 bugs, not long after users noticed the optional 25H2 preview update and its Task Manager bug – but this one has been an issue for years across two different Windows operating systems, and finally, Microsoft has addressed it.

As reported by TweakTown, Microsoft has fixed a bug that causes PCs to restart when the 'update and shut down' prompt is selected, which was confirmed in the patch notes of its October 28 optional preview (KB5067036), which lists it as an 'underlying issue'.

Across all of the Windows 10 and Windows 11 systems I've used, not a single one of them have actually updated and shut down when prompted to, and always end up restarting – to the point where it pushed me to resort to direct power button shutdown. It's quite amusing as there's also always been an option to 'update and restart' that appears, but it has essentially been obsolete.

This has been one of the more notorious bugs among the litany of issues that come with new Microsoft Windows updates, and has plagued both Windows 10 and 11 for years, leaving most users baffled as to why it occurred. There's still no clarity on what the cause was, but the important matter is that Microsoft says it's gone, which I'll be sure to test the next time an update arrives.

However, before jumping over to the preview for this fix, you might want to hold your horses, as this is the same preview that has the new Task Manager bug; to highlight, Task Manager stays open in the background when closed, ultimately increasing CPU and memory usage, so it's best to steer clear until Microsoft fix this with a stable release.

Analysis: It's one of the many frustrating bugs with Windows 11, but I'm glad Microsoft has addressed it

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Microsoft and its Windows 11 operating system has quite literally been one of the most frustrating user experiences I've had due to unexplainable bugs, but at this point, I'm just glad this long-running update and shutdown issue has finally been solved.

Unfortunately, though, it doesn't stop there; game performance is another matter, now that we've seen many games run on SteamOS at better frame rates, and the same can be said about system and game-breaking bugs. I've lost count of how many times I've had my system freeze up on me while in-game, simply multitasking, or running into Bluetooth audio device issues that don't allow me to select an output due to constant flickering.

I could go on forever about these issues, but my only hope is that Microsoft can crack down on bugs like this at a fast rate – and going by how long it's taken the update and shutdown issue to be resolved, it's hard to know what you'll get in terms of an ETA with Microsoft fixes.

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