Windows 11 update fixes nasty 40 minute boot time bug

A worn out stereotype nerd sits at their ancient PC scratching their head.

(Image credit: Vincent Besnault / Giphy)

A recent update for Windows 11 has fixed a few niggling bugs across the operating system, including one that had been causing some machines to get stuck booting up for 40 minutes, as well as a notorious memory leak issue.

A few days ago, update KB5012643 came in with some minor UI tweaks, such as the taskbar weather icon now displaying the temperature above it, as well as a bug that wouldn't allow users to minimise, maximise or close apps, along with some trouble with video subtitles.

What Guru3d spotted, was that along with a few other patches, the update seems to have fixed a bug that had been causing "certain Point of Sale terminals to experience occasional OS startup delays during restart of up to 40 minutes," according to the patch notes.

That's really not ideal. I mean, what is this, the early '90s? It's like a return to time before the best NVMe SSDs came out. Back when you had the time to make a coffee while you waited for your PC to boot up. How many coffees could you make in 40 minutes, though?

In all seriousness, the affected POS machines were likely necessary for their respective businesses to get going in the morning. And no one wants to come into work 40 minutes early just to get the tech fired up.

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The alternative, of course, would have been to leave the machines running overnight... Not the best option. For one thing we don't need big businesses using up any more power than they already do, not to mention they would've then had to deal with a memory leak issue associated with leaving Windows 11 machines on 24/7.

Thankfully, that's been addressed too in the recent update, and we're moving ever closer to a change of the team's collective opinion of Windows 11. A previous update saw us flirting with the idea that Windows 11 might now be worth it for gamers, and updates that address big issues like this are just another nail in Windows 10's coffin.

Okay, maybe lets not go that far. But some day soon, you might see the whole team turning in our Win10 badges for a curvier-cornered experience.

Screw sports, Katie would rather watch Intel, AMD and Nvidia go at it. Having been obsessed with computers and graphics for three long decades, she took Game Art and Design up to Masters level at uni, and has been demystifying tech and science—rather sarcastically—for three years since. She can be found admiring AI advancements, scrambling for scintillating Raspberry Pi projects, preaching cybersecurity awareness, sighing over semiconductors, and gawping at the latest GPU upgrades. She's been heading the PCG Steam Deck content hike, while waiting patiently for her chance to upload her consciousness into the cloud.