The 22H2 update was prohibited on those PCs to prevent the issue from emerging, but the good news is that the upgrade block has now been partially withdrawn. The most recent version of Windows 11 has been plagued by a fault that interferes pretty adversely with gaming performance for some users.
In case you missed it, the abovementioned Windows 11 22H2 problem resulted in “worse than expected performance” with various games (and other apps), including stuttering frame rates (a seriously off-putting phenomenon). This happened as a result of the afflicted PCs’ erroneous usage of GPU debugging features.
Microsoft has not yet resolved this problem, as Neowin has pointed out, but it has updated the release health dashboard with the following note: “The safeguard hold with the safeguard ID of 41990091 has been updated to only safeguard Windows devices that have one of the small subset of games and apps that are still affected by this issue.”
This implies that many Windows 11 users who had previously been prevented from downloading the 22H2 update by the abovementioned safety hold are now free to do so; only those who run one of the few games or apps that are vulnerable to the problem are now being prevented from doing so.
Analysis: The unlucky will simply have to wait – but for how long?
The vast majority of PC gamers who had been deterred from upgrading because of this bug should now be able to download the Windows 11 22H2 upgrade. As Microsoft notes, it may take up to 48 hours until the barrier is lifted and 22H2 is really made available, so you might not immediately notice the upgrade.
However, as Microsoft announced a few days ago on its health dashboard, the upgrade ought to now be accessible to everyone who is currently qualified to get it. It’s worth resetting your computer and checking for updates if you haven’t yet received the 22H2 update; but, if that doesn’t work, you’re probably still unfortunate enough to be impacted by the bug.
The only thing left to do in that situation is to wait patiently for Microsoft to put its house in order and implement a comprehensive fix for this issue. You are welcome to make an educated guess as to how long that will take.
To give you an idea, more difficult defects can be more difficult to cure. For example, it took two months to fix a Windows 11 printer bug that removed important functions from specific machines, such as the ability to print in colour. Ideally, this gaming bug won’t prove to be as difficult to fix, but who knows.
Being unable to upgrade to the most recent version of Windows 11 is a horrible experience since you can miss out on feature additions or, more concerningly, security improvements that could potentially leave your PC a target for hackers.
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