Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-01-26, 10:49:

Yeah, the latest issue is pretty bad: Microsoft suspects some PCs might not boot after Windows 11 January 2026 Update (KB5074109). Here's a direct quote from our beacon of (in)competence:

Microsoft wrote:

Microsoft has received a limited number of reports of an issue in which devices are failing to boot with stop code “UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME”, after installing the January 2026 Windows security update (the Originating KBs listed above), released January 13, 2026, and later updates. Affected devices show a black screen with the message “Your device ran into a problem and needs a restart. You can restart.” At this stage, the device cannot complete startup and requires manual recovery steps.

Maybe they had Copilot do a quick QA check on their vibe coding, and were satisfied when it said that everything looks fine.

That site wouldn't load for a while, I guess it's getting "slashdotted" this morning. Some of the symptoms listed, outlook freezing, 3rd party apps slow, S3 sleep not working, shutdown problems... ummm yeah, we knew we were running windows 🤣

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-01-26, 12:29:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-01-26, 10:49:

Yeah, the latest issue is pretty bad: Microsoft suspects some PCs might not boot after Windows 11 January 2026 Update (KB5074109). Here's a direct quote from our beacon of (in)competence:

Microsoft wrote:

Microsoft has received a limited number of reports of an issue in which devices are failing to boot with stop code “UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME”, after installing the January 2026 Windows security update (the Originating KBs listed above), released January 13, 2026, and later updates. Affected devices show a black screen with the message “Your device ran into a problem and needs a restart. You can restart.” At this stage, the device cannot complete startup and requires manual recovery steps.

Maybe they had Copilot do a quick QA check on their vibe coding, and were satisfied when it said that everything looks fine.

That site wouldn't load for a while, I guess it's getting "slashdotted" this morning. Some of the symptoms listed, outlook freezing, 3rd party apps slow, S3 sleep not working, shutdown problems... ummm yeah, we knew we were running windows 🤣

There's more ...there are now bugs and broken parts from the fixes for the previous update that broke windows oh and apparently they somehow broke notepad.

Edit - https://youtu.be/OCVyuxyX8Tg HAHAHA Another Emergency update to fix all the broken programs from the last Emergency update. 4 or is it 3 patches deep now just to fix the fixes.

Windows pc install base has begun to shrink again, take rate for 11 is lower and the number of PCs sold has also been dropping.

Combined the higher prices will likely result in lower profits

rmay635703 wrote on 2026-01-26, 20:13:

Windows pc install base has begun to shrink again, take rate for 11 is lower and the number of PCs sold has also been dropping.

Combined the higher prices will likely result in lower profits

indeed

https://www.techradar.com/pro/pc-sales-set-fo … s-other-devices

i wonder if that's long term, so many devices can fulfil the computing tasks poeple want

win 11 share seems as expected though, given context:

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market- … ktop/worldwide/

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-01-26, 09:53:

Gonna be fun to see them vibe code their way out of this.

Never thought I'd miss the Bill Gates of Borg era. How did MS go from the embarassment of having a BSOD on stage thirty years ago to allowing these calamities to happen over and over again? Heads should be rolling.

Like I said, this is just the last one of the many Windows update issues that occurred over the last year or so. All of them are well documented, even by Microsoft themselves. So yes, they are incompetent.

If anything, documenting these issues is the most competent move they could have made here. Given the attitude and shortage of people that plagues most OS development teams, you'd be lucky to get any response to a bug report.

Just because you didn't experience the issue on your system doesn't mean other people were unaffected too.

Is there a single affected user on this forum?

This reminds me of the time when a Windows update supposedly killed SSDs, yet the affected drive manufacturer couldn't reproduce the issue.

Never thought I'd miss the Bill Gates of Borg era. How did MS go from the embarassment of having a BSOD on stage thirty years ago to allowing these calamities to happen over and over again? Heads should be rolling.

Meanwhile, Microsoft during the "Borg" era...

GemCookie wrote on 2026-01-28, 09:17:

If anything, documenting these issues is the most competent move they could have made here. Given the attitude and shortage of p […]
Show full quote

Like I said, this is just the last one of the many Windows update issues that occurred over the last year or so. All of them are well documented, even by Microsoft themselves. So yes, they are incompetent.

If anything, documenting these issues is the most competent move they could have made here. Given the attitude and shortage of people that plagues most OS development teams, you'd be lucky to get any response to a bug report.

Just because you didn't experience the issue on your system doesn't mean other people were unaffected too.

Is there a single affected user on this forum?

This reminds me of the time when a Windows update supposedly killed SSDs, yet the affected drive manufacturer couldn't reproduce the issue.

Never thought I'd miss the Bill Gates of Borg era. How did MS go from the embarassment of having a BSOD on stage thirty years ago to allowing these calamities to happen over and over again? Heads should be rolling.

Meanwhile, Microsoft during the "Borg" era...

Yes, have had to roll back these updates on family PCs to fix the issue, rolled back to 23H2 and locked the OS so it cannot update beyond 23H2, truly sick of having to rollback and fix broken updates from Microslop. I don't like locking the OS down to prevent updates but at this point 24H2 and 25H2 are a total loss and both have been a train wreck of broken updates and utter stupidity from MS, cant remember MS breaking nVidia drivers this many times before IIRc its been 3 or 4 times nVidia has had to release hotfixes till MS fixes the issue themselves.

I think the strangest one was when they went and broke the recovery partition, that one required a reinstall to correct until MS managed to fix it themselves, that took them a month IIRC.

The latest round was just irritating update reboot install loops which the attempted to fix with two OOB updates that just broke other stuff.

Microslop needs to stop with the Vibe coding and actually QA their updates before pushing them to live.

Believe what you want, at this point I'm done with the people defending Microslop and making excuses for this utter incompetence, Sloppy Nadella also needs to get kicked to the curb guy is so deep into the AI bros delusions he is destroying Windows to push the AI bullshit.

GemCookie wrote on 2026-01-28, 09:17:

Is there a single affected user on this forum?

So we're back to "it didn't affect me, therefore it doesn't exist" thing? As noted earlier, Microsoft themselves confirmed that this is happening in an official statement.

But to each their own, I guess.

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-01-28, 10:38:

Microslop needs to stop with the Vibe coding and actually QA their updates before pushing them to live.

I think since Win10 M$/Mslop wanted Insiders (those who signed up for early access to builds) to do the QA -- testing and finding issues on upcoming builds.

Even then we had big issues slipped through, like 1809 update wiping user data. And that was long before LLMs/Vibe coding were a thing.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-01-28, 10:53:

GemCookie wrote on 2026-01-28, 09:17:

Is there a single affected user on this forum?

So we're back to "it didn't affect me, therefore it doesn't exist" thing? As noted earlier, Microsoft themselves confirmed that this is happening in an official statement.

But to each their own, I guess.

Not this time, but mainly because a few years back they broke my sound drivers for a month, so I have a wait and see policy for applying updates...

... unless they changed my settings in an update and I didn't catch it, or hear complaints about an update doing that before applying. Seriously, every 3rd update it seems like they reset my active times, reset my power options, reset my screensaver prefs, and so on. So one time in the year before win10 updates stopped they managed to zero day me with an update, when I thought I had it off or paused, probably due to the previously manually allowed one changing settings. That was the one where they force upgraded Outlook on me and it took 3 days to get it working again. Speaking of which there's now a zero day vulnerability with attachments on Outlook going back a decade.

Few people would admit this but the reason these things don't happen to the Linux kernel is because there is a tyrannical quasi-autistic Finnish guy obsessively making sure it stays up to his standards. I don't think Microsoft has anything equivalent anywhere down the chain of command where the Windows codebase is concerned.

GemCookie wrote on 2026-01-28, 09:17:

Meanwhile, Microsoft during the "Borg" era...

"Our customers do not want us to sell them products with over 63,000 potential known defects. They want these defects corrected," stated one of Microsoft's Windows development leaders, Marc Lucovsky, in the memo.

Is giving Windows away for free some kind of consumer protection dodge? Like how you can't sell expired food but you can give it away and if you complain you get a Bart Simpson diatribe about being given 'thousands of hours of entertainment for free'. Worst NT ever.

Yes, have had to roll back these updates on family PCs to fix the issue, rolled back to 23H2 and locked the OS so it cannot update beyond 23H2, truly sick of having to rollback and fix broken updates from Microslop. I don't like locking the OS down to prevent updates but at this point 24H2 and 25H2 are a total loss and both have been a train wreck of broken updates and utter stupidity from MS, cant remember MS breaking nVidia drivers this many times before IIRc its been 3 or 4 times nVidia has had to release hotfixes till MS fixes the issue themselves.

Thanks for the information.

Believe what you want, at this point I'm done with the people defending Microslop and making excuses for this utter incompetence, Sloppy Nadella also needs to get kicked to the curb guy is so deep into the AI bros delusions he is destroying Windows to push the AI bullshit.

Believe what you want; I'm one of the last people who would defend Microsoft. Windows just happens to be the only product they still put any effort into; the rest is hot garbage. It takes talent to achieve Office's level of (in)compatibility and make Teams run as slow as it does. I've already ditched Office and will soon have to find an alternative for the latter, since it's already becoming unusable on my fastest PCs.

So we're back to "it didn't affect me, therefore it doesn't exist" thing?

No, I never implied that. I simply mentioned that I had no issues - which by no means suggested that nobody experienced them - then wondered if anyone complaining on this thread was affected personally. Either way, Trashbytes just posted a report, so the point is now moot.

gerry wrote on 2026-01-27, 14:20:

indeed […]
Show full quote

rmay635703 wrote on 2026-01-26, 20:13:

Windows pc install base has begun to shrink again, take rate for 11 is lower and the number of PCs sold has also been dropping.

Combined the higher prices will likely result in lower profits

indeed

https://www.techradar.com/pro/pc-sales-set-fo … s-other-devices

i wonder if that's long term, so many devices can fulfil the computing tasks poeple want

win 11 share seems as expected though, given context:

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market- … ktop/worldwide/

To me it feels like past situations where an industry desperately wants to go out of business and loose all consumer sales.

They literally are doing all the things, basically they don’t appear to want to sell you anything. Both 1st party and 3rd party software making amateur failures and hardware failing to deliver in a variety of perplexing ways.

So the question is why would anyone stick with x86? Feels like they are trying to do an IBM mainframe market re-enactment .

And what’s worse they literally could have done any number of small things differently in the last 20 to not be in this specific place.

GemCookie wrote on 2026-01-28, 18:40:

Thanks for the information. […]
Show full quote

Yes, have had to roll back these updates on family PCs to fix the issue, rolled back to 23H2 and locked the OS so it cannot update beyond 23H2, truly sick of having to rollback and fix broken updates from Microslop. I don't like locking the OS down to prevent updates but at this point 24H2 and 25H2 are a total loss and both have been a train wreck of broken updates and utter stupidity from MS, cant remember MS breaking nVidia drivers this many times before IIRc its been 3 or 4 times nVidia has had to release hotfixes till MS fixes the issue themselves.

Thanks for the information.

Believe what you want, at this point I'm done with the people defending Microslop and making excuses for this utter incompetence, Sloppy Nadella also needs to get kicked to the curb guy is so deep into the AI bros delusions he is destroying Windows to push the AI bullshit.

Believe what you want; I'm one of the last people who would defend Microsoft. Windows just happens to be the only product they still put any effort into; the rest is hot garbage. It takes talent to achieve Office's level of (in)compatibility and make Teams run as slow as it does. I've already ditched Office and will soon have to find an alternative for the latter, since it's already becoming unusable on my fastest PCs.

So we're back to "it didn't affect me, therefore it doesn't exist" thing?

No, I never implied that. I simply mentioned that I had no issues - which by no means suggested that nobody experienced them - then wondered if anyone complaining on this thread was affected personally. Either way, Trashbytes just posted a report, so the point is now moot.

The problem here is thinking MS is putting any effort into Windows beyond the bare minimum.

It's less than 8% of their business these days they make more from cloud and web services and subscriptions. This is why Windows has become their add and subscription pushing wagon.

They don't need it to survive.

Win12 will be a full subscription cloud based OS of this I'm certain.

the mass take-up of ram for AI can be regulated by government

zapbuzz wrote on 2026-01-29, 11:39:

the mass take-up of ram for AI can be regulated by government

The same governments that seem to universally worship AI as a god just like their peers in business, no matter their political alignment, because they’re old people who don’t know any better?

zapbuzz wrote on 2026-01-29, 11:39:

the mass take-up of ram for AI can be regulated by government

I suppose almost anything can given enough resources and attention, but in practical terms - how?

its interesting to see that games are no longer the most demanding tasks a graphics card can undertake

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-01-30, 00:11:

its interesting to see that games are no longer the most demanding tasks a graphics card can undertake

The inclusion of Tensor/AI acceleration hardware on the GPU is the sole reason for that.

I'm of the mind that nVidia-Jensen had it all planned out, he knew exactly what direction GPU hardware would end up going and planned for it. Now he wants to remove raster from the GPU and have it be 100% AI generated output. Not sure how he intends for that to work but each version of DLSS is a step towards that where it is relying less and less on the raster engine to get work done for output.

With how the AI industry is moving he will need to pivot again shortly as GPUS are only really good for training the AI, once the training is done they are far too power hungry to be efficient for inference and running the AI day to day, so we are now seeing ASICS like NPUs and TPUs take over from GPUs doing the heavy lifting.

So you can expect nVidia to add a inference engine to the GPU soonish which would explain their recent acquisition of a NPU designer/fabricator.