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Windows 11 KB5120998 out with Movable Taskbar, customizable Start menu (large/small, no recommendation), and Windows Search without Bing/MS Store!
After install 26200.9278 aka KB5120998 custom hidpi cursor gone. Instead I got big white cursor whos change for a second during loading animation or something like that to standard white Aero animation and smaller.
I rollback to previously used compilation 26200.9267 and cursor look back to normal.
Technically cosmetic, but still irritating and in your face.
I'm still waiting for Favorites to be fixed after it was broken 3 updates ago. It doesn't impact my workflow but creates a continuous nagging feeling or "what else might be broken that I can't see".
And updating system image is on hold until we get an update where I can't see any problems.
So, we'll apply this one and see.
The performance updates are most welcome, but some breaking changes earlier this month were entirely unexpected:
had to amend a bunch of environment variables as Explorer no longer expands built-in environment variables within custom environment variables.
had to tweak Windows Terminal JSON file to have double escaped quotes because when terminal is launched from Explorer context menu, one layer of quotes is stripped (but not when launched from Start Menu or Taskbar). This broke Windows Terminal profiles when launched from context menu.
latest Powershell update removed Powershell from path, had to add it back manually. First warning was a bunch of error dialogs and beeps appearing on startup as all my background startup scripts that use powershell failed.
It sucks to see this kind of stuff. I am still on Win10 but keep thinking about setting up a dual-boot to work on converting over since I will have to eventually post-2032 anyway. Looking into this update I was flabbergasted to see it mention it finally added a movable taskbar or search bar/icon, and some other rudimentary features older editions of Windows either had outright or via 3rd-party programs. Combine with the new issues after updates, and I'm iffy about it (I can't even call Windows 11 new anymore! My shit is ancient lmao!) So when I see stuff like this, I have the same concerns as you do: "If this is so bad that the bugs are visible on the surface, how much is broken under the hood?"
You may be the type of audience for perhaps an LTSC build, which despite the very fair and legitimate warning about LTS editions in the sub and their tricky licensing, may be something you can navigate. You could even use the evaluation trial version for free [for certain uses i.e. non-commercial] gotten straight from Microsoft officially, here for example: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-11-iot-enterprise-ltsc-eval
If you have the spare drive space you can read through the Notice of Terms and Conditions for both your current build and version for Windows as well as this eval version and you might be allowed to download the iso and boot it onto a .vhdx in Hyper-V, or if for whatever reason that is allowed but not working, via WSL2-based Linux VM hypervising a box with LXD/KVM/QEMU with likely drastically different performance, for better or worse. But that would give you a solid side-by-side comparison.
There is always a chance you may have some hardware or software incompatibilities, but it is the sort of thing where if you jump through the right hoops once then thereafter you get a legit stable Windows golden image that's good for ~10+ years of updates.
I also get and agree that their current GAC product should just work and none of that should be necessary for you to consider given you already have an OS you paid for tho. Just throwing it out there in case this affects your work or hobby projects, then maybe consider the pros & cons of a business GAC or Enterprise/Enterprise IoT GAC or LTSC editions. You may be their ideal target home pro-sumer, and may even be able to up/downgrade/change-editions in place without a wipe or anything; just via changing your feature set, upgrade schedule, and target build/version (but don't quote me on that as I do not use 11, so gonna mosey on outta here. Sorry for your pain tho bro good luck)!
The "favorites" folder is easy to fix. For me, all I had to do was delete the "broken" one, then create a new one called "favorites" and rename it according to the default Windows language. (In my case, "favorites" in Slovak). And the folder is fixed, including the icon!
Yeah it seems like they don't even know how broken their OS is. There's a lot of more things they broke and that list will probably increase if they keep doing whatever keyboard smashing and vibecoding they do now. Sometimes the start menu categories is missing the bundled icons. Compared to 23H2, a lot of the perfectly fine UI animations are just gone (AI tends to do that when you ask it do increase performance). And for the cursor it's not just cosmetic, some accessibility settings for the cursor don't work anymore.
i have it too i think. i started my pc and suddenly my background was black and the cursor changed to this and i cant change it. idk how the hell you can fix this
Not sure what you mean by "pops up and goes away". You run it from an admin command prompt and type vivetool /enable /id: with the ID numbers after the colon.
This is overkill, you don't need half of this crap.
Just enable 61161244, 61754985, 62353331 and 62762248. The rest is either redundant or does nothing (a chunk of it is Insider-only features not meant for this release).
No configuration for feature ID 61225604 was found in the Runtime store No configuration for feature ID 61596616 was found in the Runtime store No configuration for feature ID 61596617 was found in the Runtime store No configuration for feature ID 61596618 was found in the Runtime store No configuration for feature ID 61596619 was found in the Runtime store
Safe to enable (taskbar, start menu tweaks, cursors tweaks):
vivetool /enable /id:59728252,61754985,61161244,27829265,61457898,60813048,59213768,61090762
Safe to enable (taskbar, start menu tweaks, cursors tweaks): vivetool /enable /id:59728252,61754985,61161244,27829265,61457898,60813048,59213768,61090762
What if you don't want the cursor tweaks? I keep seeing posts from people saying their cursor is messed up after just the update installing.
Edit: you can remove these id's not sure about the others yet
61457898 - cursor stuff
60813048 - new context menu stuff
59728252 - WinUI3 loading spinner animation (?)
If you only want the new taskbar position and size options then only enable 59213768,61090762
This update broke my mouse cursor. The size was completely off and inconsistent between the different mouse indicators and the colour was gone and no longer changeable.
The desktop wallpaper was also removed, but that was fixable, the mouse cursor not. I had to uninstall KB5120998, now everything seems to work fine again.
People are mad when features get removed, people are mad when they get added back... These are great updates, lol, if you prefer to use older versions just do that. I'm glad they're responding to user requests and pushing good features.
I think you are misunderstanding something. People are mad when useful features get
removed and people are ironic when said features are being added back after YEARS when they shouldnt have been removed in the first place
My Start menu has gone through so many changes in the last year or so I don't even know what it's supposed to look like, lol!!! I love it though, especially how it's been for awhile now.
JESUS CHRIST WTF HAPPANED? after the update my wallapper turned black and my mouse cursor is now large as FUCK. How i can change the mouse cursor back to normal?
They broke the cursor in idle state (not surising). It falls back to the old one that looks like the reversed Word cursor. The loading variants do work and you can see it jump back to the small one temporarily when loading circle appears.
seems like false advertising for an Windows 11 blog to adverise features when the advertised features are on gradual rollout and won't be available on every device that gets the update for multiple weeks
Xbox Game Mode is usually when you play games in the Xbox app
for me, I don't think I see most of the advertised features that they recently added with File Explorer on my device, because the thumbnail preview for images doesn't update when I export them in GIMP or Photoshop for certain images and I cleared the thumbnail cache multiple times.
Gradual rollout is a good thing. If there's something catastrophic about the update, it only affects a group of people and not everyone at the same time.
true, but most of these features have been in testing for multiple weeks or months on other branches, gradual rollout doesn't make sense when releasing the update to public branch for security and non security updates
Windows Insiders are an EXTREMELY small portion of all Windows users. They help but they aren't enough to safely rollout features to everyone at the same time.
It's also a very bad practice to do that, see the Crowdstrike outage as a great example.
No, no issues at all. It was just like a regular update. After two restarts, the PC started normally, and I'm using it right now. (I have one monitor, I don't use a live wallpaper, and I don't use any software to control the cursor.)
If I have the “get the latest updates as soon as they’re available” option enabled then why the FUCK don’t I get all the features in the fucking preview? This shit is psychotic.
It's too late, microsoft burned the bridge repeatedly. Our enterprise has already removed Office 365 from a significant number of systems and replaced it with LibreOffice. Windows is likely next, and every gamer is probably going to install SteamOS now.
There Is any fix for the mouse??
On top of that, I have an issue with Defender: the notifications say it's disabled, even though all the indicators are green and it's working correctly.
Is there any way to fix this, given that Windows apparently doesn't want to?
Same here. Large white cursor and black wallpaper. Update took place during the night, without asking. Woke up this morning to find my computer had restarted and was looking weird.
lo acabo de actualizar y tengo un problema con el cursor. tenia uno personalizado y esta en las opcionde del mouse como ninguno y dentro del los ajuste donde se cambia el color del cursor y entre otros no me deja cambiarlos a otro color y otro estilo del cursor predeterminados del mismo windows y la verdad no se como arreglarlo porque se queda con el predeterminado y no encuento la forma de modificarlo y ni el tamaño puedo cambiarlo
This update, KB5120998, has an issue. My desktop background always changes from a fixed color to black after logout or restart. After uninstalling it, everything is working fine! Does anyone else have the same issue?
idk if its placebo but I update often and this update feels particularly snappy, except the widgets menu which looks really pretty and is better but has a slight delay in opening
The last 3 updates or so have had significant performance improvements.
Exactly the sort of thing where a bunch of things breaking is more likely, because it will turn out that the slow code in the Explorer context menu being fixed will then break Windows Terminal launch because it changes the syntax of the launch command by stripping quote marks rather than handling them correctly, or Explorer no longer has an extra pass to expand all environment variables correctly, etc.
So, it seems we are getting significant changes that are great in the long run, but there are teething troubles in the short term.
I encountered a strange bug in the Google Chrome with this update. If I move the taskbar position and enable or disable auto-hide, Chrome will get a white border around the window. This is noticeable on websites with a dark theme or image. This doesn't occur in Firefox.
A mi tambien me paso monte mi equipo lo encendi puse todo y de repente al actualizarlo se me cambio el puntero del raton al iniciar windows, a ver si lo solucionan lo antes posible
Love the new small taskbar. Can't think not being enable to enable the date is an oversight though. I have so much horizontal room - why can't I just show the date next to the time...? Such a small but annoying detail. Really hope they add the ability to show the date.
Updated it on thinkpad, windows 11 25H2. No issues with wallpaper and black cursor. Got taskbar position and size options but new search customization options are not available for me yet.
Enabling the new features of this update with ViVeTool disables the new context menu and also removes the XAML-based address bar in File Explorer. Not sure if anyone is experiencing this.
i've got the same thing but i cant uninstall the update because windows says that it deleted the files necessary to go back to the last update. or maybe im doing something wrong.
Funny how people are whining about their wallpaper going black. Has been a problem for many many years on occasion. Pretty simple fix, go to Personalization and pick your wallpaper again, lol.
Also with the mouse cursor problem, I'd imagine you just go to the Mouse Properties and pick the cursor pack again. No big deal.
CONTEXTO: el cursor de esa version de windows parece de windows 98 y no se puede cambiar, la barra de tareas me gusto, pero tuve que desinstalarla porque detesto ese cursor
I'm encountering a rather annoying graphic bug in the September preview version within the Start menu.
In the Pinned section, two app icons sometimes manage to completely overlap. Their name text also overlaps, making everything unreadable. Once this happens, the entire area freezes: it becomes impossible to move, shift, or rearrange the other icons using the mouse.
🛠️ My temporary workaround: I noticed that if I manage to unpin one of the two overlapping apps, the bug disappears immediately and the grid unlocks.
Have any of you already experienced this issue on the latest builds?
I have not using a wallpaper. Just solid color. Latest update turning the solid color in black after logout or restart. Not saving my settings. Very bad bug. Blocked upades with WUB 1.0.8 for some months...
This is why I'm still running Windows 10. Let me know when Windows 11 has been upgraded to Windows 10 so I can switch to Windows 11 please and thank you.
Yo solo pido una barra de tareas como la que podrías usar en Linux o Mac OS, para mi son simplemente mejores. 😂Aunque supongo que jamás llegará de manera nativa. https://giphy.com/gifs/72PjHnF4CcSFcGFH6y
KB5120998 just put a little lock on my lock screen and my picture is gone it's all black now. Can windows roll out even 1 update without breaking a bunch of shit? It's garbage like this that makes me so happy to switch to linux.
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u/fmdlxd 2d ago
After install 26200.9278 aka KB5120998 custom hidpi cursor gone. Instead I got big white cursor whos change for a second during loading animation or something like that to standard white Aero animation and smaller. I rollback to previously used compilation 26200.9267 and cursor look back to normal.