Microsoft admits Windows 10 taskbar bug, and is working on a fix
There are already several unofficial workarounds
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Windows 10has an issue with the taskbar,Microsofthas admitted, while letting affected users know that a solution is in the works.
If you’ve been following the news onWindows 10problems of late, you’ll recall this one popping up with thelatest June cumulative update(and thepreviewversion of that batch of patches in late May). It affects those using the May 2021 Update, October 2020 Update andMay 2020 Update, plus the November 2019 Update.
Microsoft pinpoints this bug as actually creeping in with KB5001391, the preview update of May’s patching, back in late April, and observesthat: “After installing KB5001391 or later updates, the news and interests button in the Windows taskbar might have blurry text on certain display configurations.”
The software giant adds: “We are working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release.”
Workarounds aplenty
Meantime, the obvious workaround as we’ve discussed before is simply to turn off News and interests on the taskbar (right click the icon for the app – or an empty bit of the taskbar – then left click ‘News and interests’, and select ‘Turn off’).
What’s interesting here is that while Microsoft has acknowledged the visual corruption of theNews and interests iconin some cases, there’s no mention of the other problems which have been reported elsewhere.
That includes the taskbar system tray icons becoming corrupted, or vanishing entirely, seriously impacting the usability of Windows 10. Microsoft hasn’t commented on these other gremlins, but again, if you’re suffering these, simply dumping the ‘News and interests’ icon is a possible simple cure.
Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.
Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.
If that doesn’t work for you, other options are to uninstall the cumulative update which caused the problem – not ideal, obviously – or you could try moving the taskbar to the top of the screen, asWccftech(which spotted Microsoft’s announcement) suggests.
Other potential remediesinclude heading to Settings > System > Display to make sure the option for changing the size of text, apps and other items (under ‘Scale and layout’) is on ‘recommended’.
Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).
Alt + Tab trouble: Windows 11’s 24H2 update turns time-saving shortcut into ten-second headache
Windows 11’s Paint and Notepad apps are getting smart new AI features – though one of the best will be for Copilot+ PCs only
Quordle today – hints and answers for Saturday, November 9 (game #1020)
