Facepalm: If you haven’t installed the latest monthly cumulative patch for Windows 10, you may want to pause all updates for a few weeks. Microsoft may have released a large number of important security fixes for Windows and other Microsoft software products but has also broken a few other things, which may worsen your gaming experience.
Every time Microsoft releases another Windows 10 update, you can almost expect that something will go wrong, given the company’s poor track record over the last few years. In March, this meant that many people found their printers mysteriously refusing to work correctly with their up-to-date system. Luckily, the company fixed the issue within a week via an “optional quality update.”
This month, Patch Tuesday brought a Windows 10 update that meant to fix at least 110 security issues affecting Windows, Office, and Microsoft Exchange Server—the latter of which saw several large-scale cyberattacks over the last few months. However, some gamers are experiencing issues first observed with a minor update (KB5000842) at the end of March.
At this point, it’s not clear whether these issues are tied to specific hardware configurations. However, most people complained of unstable framerates, stutter, and even complete system crashes when playing games like Doom Eternal, Red Dead Redemption 2, Overwatch, and Call of Duty: Warzone. Others experienced issues with V-Sync and running Discord in the background while gaming.
You may also be among the unlucky few Surface Pro 7 and Surface Studio 2 owners who saw the update failing to install even after several tries, throwing error codes 0x800f0984 and 0x800f081f. Others saw a BSOD immediately after the update finished installing, only to be greeted by a boot loop. If you’re experiencing DNS issues, the folks at Dentrix may have a temporary workaround.
Uninstalling the update from the appropriate section in the Control Panel or restoring your system to an earlier point in time will help with most cases. If you have yet to install the update, waiting for a fix may be worth the risk of putting off the latest security patches.