Microsoft’s February 2023 Patch Tuesday was this week. As always, the updates were for bringing security fixes to Microsoft services. However, as is now tradition, the Patch Tuesday updates are also causing significant bugs.
This month, Windows 11 updates KB5019980/KB5019961 and as well as Windows 10 (KB5019959) are facing issues with a broken DirectX or Direct3D. Specifically, users are reporting that since installing the patches applications that use these services are not working.
Microsoft has confirmed the problem on its Windows Health Dashboard, saying the broken DirectX and Driect3D are causing apphelp DLL errors. According to the company, the bug is limited to a subset of Intel graphics drivers.
“After installing KB5019980, you might receive an error with apphelp.dll on Windows devices using Intel graphics drivers with versions 26.20.100.7463 up to 30.0.101.1190. This issue might happen intermittently and affects apps which use DirectX or Direct3D to render part or all of their content.
Workaround: To mitigate this issue, you can install an Intel graphics driver with a later version than 30.0.101.1190. It is recommended to check your Windows device manufacturer’s support for the latest version of the Intel graphics driver for your device. If they do not offer a driver later than 30.0.101.1190, you can check List of Drivers for Intel Graphics for information on how to download and install the latest Intel graphics driver available from Intel directly.”
While any bug is a pain, this time Microsoft can be cut a little slack because the affected drivers are old. In fact, a workaround for this very problem was issued in December 2021. Microsoft is now working on a fix that we should see arrive in the coming days/weeks.
Tip of the day: Did you know you can use Windowss built in antivirus Microsoft Defender also with scheduled scans? In our tutorial we give you step-by-step instructions on how to program your personal scan-schedule to keep your free of malware.
