March, April Windows 11 updates cause BSOD pain for users

Keeping with its rich history of updates that break Windows in unexpected ways, Microsoft has warned that two recent patches for Windows 11 24H2 are triggering blue screen crashes. The software in question, April cumulative update KB5055523 and March preview update KB5053656, are causing the freeze-ups on devices running Windows 11 24H2, Microsoft said, and appear after either update is installed and the system is rebooted. "You might encounter a blue screen exception with error code 0x18B indicating a SECURE_KERNEL_ERROR," Microsoft's documentation for both patches reads. The Azure titan hasn't explained much about the issue, and hasn't responded to our questions about the matter. No permanent fix has been issued yet, with Redmond only suggesting a workaround mitigation that it's working to roll out now. Microsoft is addressing the issue using a Known Issue Rollback (KIR), a mechanism introduced in 2021 that lets the Excel giant quietly undo borked non-security updates without user intervention. If you're running Windows 11 24H2 on a personal or unmanaged machine, the rollback should apply automatically via Windows Update - though it might take up to 24 hours to kick in. A reboot could help your system grab the fix faster, according to Microsoft. The repair job is somewhat more involved for IT departments managing affected machines. IT teams dealing with machines hit by this particular BSOD will need to download a Group Policy .msi file from Microsoft's update support pages ...