{"id":207291,"date":"2022-11-29T13:12:19","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T12:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=207291"},"modified":"2025-07-01T20:18:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T03:18:25","slug":"microsoft-windows-gaming-bug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/microsoft-windows-gaming-bug\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Microsoft be able to solve the mysterious Windows 11 gaming bug?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just over two weeks ago, Microsoft released the <a href=\"https:\/\/windows-11.en.softonic.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"Windows 11\">Windows 11<\/a> 22H2 update that many of us have been waiting for. Unfortunately, it didn\u2019t run as smoothly as the company expected. PC gamers ended up with <strong>stuttering and lag in many games<\/strong>, killing the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.softonic.com\/articles\/windows-11-system-tray-privacy-update-vpn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"previous delightful performance\">previous delightful performance<\/a>. Now, the <a href=\"https:\/\/windows-10.en.softonic.com\/articles\/how-to-upgrade-windows-10-to-11-window-11-new-features\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"22H2\">22H2<\/a> is rolling out again, but only to those gamers who don\u2019t have specific games or apps installed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Microsoft did a <strong>deep investigation <\/strong>into what was causing the lag in gaming performance when <a href=\"https:\/\/windows-11.en.softonic.com\/articles\/microsoft-netflix-lower-priced-windows-devices\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"22H2 was released\">22H2 was released<\/a>. 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\u2019s not something that other apps should be able to access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When Microsoft <a href=\"https:\/\/windows-11.en.softonic.com\/articles\/windows-11-energy-recommendations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"discovered this issue\">discovered this issue<\/a>, they put a <strong>safeguard in place<\/strong>. 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\u2019t see the option to upgrade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite the time since the investigation, Microsoft <strong>hasn\u2019t been able to fix the problem yet<\/strong>. When you head to the <a href=\"https:\/\/windows-11.en.softonic.com\/articles\/windows-11-usb-drive-eject-bug\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"health dashboard\">health dashboard<\/a>, you may see this message:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/sft\/articles\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2022\/11\/Windows-gaming-bug-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Windows\" class=\"wp-image-207297\" srcset=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2022\/11\/Windows-gaming-bug-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2022\/11\/Windows-gaming-bug-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2022\/11\/Windows-gaming-bug-768x433.jpg 768w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2022\/11\/Windows-gaming-bug-800x450.jpg 800w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2022\/11\/Windows-gaming-bug-664x374.jpg 664w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2022\/11\/Windows-gaming-bug-238x134.jpg 238w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2022\/11\/Windows-gaming-bug-436x246.jpg 436w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2022\/11\/Windows-gaming-bug-370x208.jpg 370w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2022\/11\/Windows-gaming-bug-304x170.jpg 304w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2022\/11\/Windows-gaming-bug-18x10.jpg 18w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2022\/11\/Windows-gaming-bug-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2022\/11\/Windows-gaming-bug.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In effect, it means that Microsoft has identified which games and apps are <strong>enabling the GPU debugging features<\/strong>. If your device doesn\u2019t have any of these installed, then you\u2019re going to see the Windows 22H2 update ready for your device. The safeguard hold will be gone.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, should you have programs that <a href=\"https:\/\/windows-11.en.softonic.com\/articles\/microsoft-pc-manager\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"cause this issue\">cause this issue<\/a>, you won\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just over two weeks ago, Microsoft released the Windows 11 22H2 update that many of us have been waiting for. Unfortunately, it didn\u2019t 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 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/microsoft-windows-gaming-bug\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Will Microsoft be able to solve the mysterious Windows 11 gaming bug?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9205,"featured_media":207293,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1018,1015],"tags":[1052,3726],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-207291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","category-news","tag-windows-10","tag-windows-11-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9205"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322837,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207291\/revisions\/322837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207291"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=207291"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=207291"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=207291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}