Will Microsoft be able to solve the mysterious Windows 11 gaming bug?

Just over two weeks ago, Microsoft released the Windows 11 22H2 update that many of us have been waiting for. Unfortunately, it didn’t run as smoothly as the company expected. PC gamers ended up with stuttering and lag in many games, killing the previous delightful performance. Now, the 22H2 is rolling out again, but only to those gamers who don’t have specific games or apps installed.

Microsoft did a deep investigation into what was causing the lag in gaming performance when 22H2 was released. What it found was that some games and apps enabled debugging features on the GPU. While this is a built-in feature for Windows, it’s not something that other apps should be able to access.

When Microsoft discovered this issue, they put a safeguard in place. That meant that all affected PCs had a block enabled, preventing the Windows upgrade from happening. So while it was advertised that the new version was available, many users didn’t see the option to upgrade.

Despite the time since the investigation, Microsoft hasn’t been able to fix the problem yet. When you head to the health dashboard, you may see this message:

“The safeguard hold with the safeguard ID of 41990091 has been updated to only safeguard Windows devices which have one of the small subset of games and apps which are still affected by this issue.”

In effect, it means that Microsoft has identified which games and apps are enabling the GPU debugging features. If your device doesn’t have any of these installed, then you’re going to see the Windows 22H2 update ready for your device. The safeguard hold will be gone. 

However, should you have programs that cause this issue, you won’t be able to upgrade. Microsoft recommends you update all your apps, games, and drivers for the best way to remove this issue. For now, it will continue trying to find a solution to this gaming bug problem.