Why Some Windows 10 PCs are locking up and crashing after May update

telcodad

This month’s Patch Tuesday update is causing problems for some Windows 10 users, including BitLocker recovery issues and blue screen crashes:

Why Windows 10 PCs are locking up and crashing after May update
Some users woke up to a serious bug on their machines after a recent Windows update.
By Chris Stobing, LapTop - May 16, 2025
https://www.laptopmag.com/laptops/windows-laptops/windows-update-bitlocker-bug

toolman1990

This issue does not surprise me since I assume Microsoft is not investing any more resources into Windows 10 internal testing/updates since they are getting ready to end support by the end of this year.

OmegaWolf747

My inner conspiracy theorist sees this as a deliberate device to move people to 11.

Delonar

People still have auto updates enabled in 2025?

toolman1990

Delonar You could disable it, and Windows 10 would still auto update.

Delonar

toolman1990 Windows 10 would still auto update

No on any of my machines. Blocked by group policy editor settings (Win 10 pro). Same via registry in Win Home version.

Donut417

Delonar Im going to guess most no tech oriented people dont use group policy editor or edit the registry. I personally have the network connection set to metered and I keep my PC off when not in use.

toolman1990

Donut417 Most people have home edition versions of Microsoft Windows so no group policy editor,

Andyross

toolman1990 You can add it.
https://www.majorgeeks.com/content/page/enable_group_policy_editor_in_windows_10_home_edition.html

Donut417

toolman1990 there are ways via the registry. But most won’t fuck with that. Or 3rd party software that might cause problems down the road.

urbanriot

Donut417 It’s not hard, I add these keys to every one of my PCs:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]
"NoAutoUpdate"=dword:00000001
"AUOptions"=dword:00000002
"NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers"=dword:00000001

Basically don’t auto-update, pop up from time to time with suggestions to update, and don’t automatically reboot my PC if you somehow do get an update.

I once lost a pile of data because Windows decided to reboot my PC unexpectedly after it did an update and I said never again…

Donut417

urbanriot It’s not hard, I add these keys to every one of my PCs:

Is my 64 year old mother going to do that? NO. The vast majority of people are not going to screw around in the registry.

Somewhat-Reticent

Donut417 No, she’ll draft you to do it. It’ll be good practice for you.

Donut417

Somewhat-Reticent I Pretty soon that wont be an issue. Her current machine wont support Windows 11, so Windows 10 updates are done in October. Regardless if she gets a new machine, she automatically updates. I dont really fuck around with her machine unless it’s something she cant figure out. I got my oh shit keep working.

urbanriot

Donut417

Is my 64 year old mother going to do that? NO. The vast majority of people are not going to screw around in the registry.

No but most people know at least one tech-centric friend of family member who can do it.

If you really want her to be safe you can also use DeferFeatureUpdatesPeriodInDays and DeferQualityUpdatesPeriodInDays. These days I set feature updates to 256 days for more people and quality updates to 7 days as it seems to take Microsoft almost a week to fix botched updates.

telcodad

Microsoft Confirms Emergency Update For Windows Users
By Zak Doffman, Forbes - May 21, 2025
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2025/05/21/microsoft-confirms-emergency-update-for-windows-users/

Microsoft has just confirmed an emergency update for Windows 10, after an increasing number of users reported May’s mandatory security update breaking Windows. Affected users have been hit with BitLocker Recovery screens and even dreaded Blue Screens of Death after downloading and trying to install the latest critical update.

“Windows 10 might repeatedly display the BitLocker recovery screen at startup,” the company warned, confirming an out of bounds update via Microsoft’s Update Catalog.

The issue affects users “on devices with Intel Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) enabled on 10th generation or later Intel vPro processors.” Those who have not yet deployed May’s update should install the out of bounds update instead. …

Somewhat-Reticent

An update is not always an upgrade.

PL1

telcodad The issue affects users “on devices with Intel Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) enabled on 10th generation or later Intel vPro processors.”

Also Note from the article: This issue and fix primarily applies to enterprise users, as “consumer devices typically do not use Intel vPro processors and are less likely to be impacted by this issue.”