KB5016629: This month’s latest security update for Windows 11 is causing new issues for some folks, according to reports and Microsoft’s updated documentation.
The second Tuesday of the month has always seen a slew of fixes and improvements for Windows. Microsoft has been releasing Patch Tuesday updates since October 2003, and KB5016629 is the latest security update released as part of the August 2022 cycle. This patch includes both non-security and security improvements for supported hardware.
In addition to fixes, cumulative updates are also plagued with minor issues, and the August 2022 update is no exception. This month’s Windows 11’s update is also causing problems for users, including a bug where the installation of the update would fail without any error message.
As per the release notes, Microsoft has fixed a known issue that prevents users from opening the Start menu. This bug was first reported in July 2022 update, and it blocked users from accessing the Start when they tapped or clicked the Start button or used the Windows keyboard shortcut.
Windows 11 KB5016629 issues
As mentioned, Windows 11’s August 2022 update is failing to install for many.
“2022-08 Cumulative Update for Windows 11 for x64-based Systems (KB5016629) – fails to update with error Install error – 0x80073701,” the error message reads.
“It takes ages to download and then come up with this error – no other information – someone at Microsoft must know what the error code means and how to correct it,” one of the frustrated users noted in the Feedback Hub.
There are similar reports on Feedback Hub, but Microsoft hasn’t acknowledged the bug.
However, Microsoft has confirmed one known issue in the update – a bug that could break XPS Viewer and users might be unable to open XPS documents in some non-English languages. This includes Japanese and Chinese character encodings. The bug affects both – XML Paper Specification (XPS) and Open XML Paper Specification (OXPS) files.
If your device is affected, an error message “This page cannot be displayed” will appear within XPS Viewer. The same bug also causes high CPU usage and significantly increases the app’s memory usage.
“When the error is encountered, if XPS Viewer is not closed, it might reach up to 2.5GB of memory usage before closing unexpectedly,” Microsoft noted. The company also confirmed that most home users would not run into the issue.