Facepalm: The news that shouldn’t surprise anyone is that the Windows update is causing serious problems for some of those who downloaded and installed it. Reported problems include a sharp drop in SSD speed (by more than half), blue screens of death and incorrect operation of applications.
The KB5023706 update for Windows 11 22H2, codenamed Moment 2, brought the usual improvements, fixes and features to Microsoft’s OS, including the Task Manager search bar and a taskbar optimized for tablets. As in the case of Windows updates, unwanted elements also appeared in it.
The most serious problem associated with the update is its impact on some solid-state drives, with some reports claiming that their speed has dropped by half or even worse. More than one user stated that the update reduced the performance of the 1TB Adata XPG SX8200 Pro solid-state drive on their laptop; it seems that the problem is limited to this model of Adata solid-state drive. The redditor said their download time more than doubled to 31 seconds after installing the update, but returned to normal after removing KB5023706.
Microsoft says the affected SSD speeds are one of the known upgrade issues. It says that “Copying large files of several gigabytes (GB) may take longer than expected to complete in Windows 11 version 22H2. Most likely, you will encounter this problem when copying files in Windows 11 version 22H2 from a shared network resource through the server message block. (SMB), but the local copy of the files may also be affected. Windows devices used by consumers at home or in small offices are unlikely to be affected by this problem.”
Microsoft says that those who encounter the problem can mitigate it by using file copying tools that don’t use cache manager (buffered I/O). He has also published two “built-in” command line tools that can be used as a fix until an official solution is released.:
- robocopy \\someserver\someshare c:\somefolder somefile.img /J
- xcopy \\someserver\someshare c:\somefolder /J
Low SSD speed is not the only problem caused by the upgrade. Some people have found that they have errors when downloading or installing Moment 2. There are also reports that users have experienced constant blue screens of death, broken applications and a slow Wi-Fi connection after installing the update.
If you are experiencing any of these issues, the best option is to uninstall the update until Microsoft fixes the bugs. As is often the case with such things, it seems that only a small number of users are facing problems.
