Microsoft has had a rough stretch. After resolving a Microsoft 365 outage that left files inaccessible, the company now faces deeper problems on the Windows side. Nvidia publicly blamed the latest Patch Tuesday for causing major gaming performance drops and pushed out an emergency driver to contain the damage. The backlash also followed criticism directed at Microsoft’s new agentic OS direction revealed earlier this week.
Amid the complaints, Microsoft has quietly acknowledged that a wide range of Windows 11’s core features have been malfunctioning for months, as reported by Neowin. As reported by Neowin, the company published a support article confirming that almost every major Shell component is affected due to issues in Windows’ XAML framework.
The problems stretch across the Start menu, Taskbar, Explorer, Search and Windows Settings. What makes the admission more surprising is that the underlying bug traces back to the July 2025 Patch Tuesday update, meaning the issue went unaddressed for four months.
Microsoft explained that the problem affects devices provisioned with cumulative updates released since July. First-time logins after an update and all logins on non-persistent virtual desktops are affected because required application packages aren’t fully installed before the Shell loads.
The faulty updates involve several Windows XAML components, including MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy, Microsoft.UI.Xaml.CBS_8wekyb3d8bbwe and MicrosoftWindows.Client.Core_cw5n1h2txyewy. Their failure triggers cascading issues such as Explorer.exe crashes, ShellHost errors, Start menu failures, Settings refusing to open and XAML views not loading.
The company listed symptoms that administrators may see on impacted machines. These include Explorer running with no taskbar, immersive Shell components missing and applications crashing when they attempt to initialise XAML interfaces. With enterprise provisioning heavily reliant on these components, the issue has created widespread disruption in business environments.
Microsoft says a full fix is in development, but offered two temporary workarounds. The first involves re-registering the affected Shell packages via PowerShell commands to restore the missing components. The second is a PowerShell logon script that prevents Explorer from launching too early, giving Windows time to provision the required packages.
Administrators can find Microsoft’s full guidance through the support article linked under KB5072911.
