It looks like Microsoft might have another Windows 11 update fail on its hands, with reports that some users are experiencing longer PC boot times after installing the latest patch.
As Neowin reports, a growing thread on Reddit has numerous users complaining that since installing Microsoft’s cumulative update, which was released on March 14, the speed of their SSDs (solid state drives) has dropped dramatically.
In one post (which you can see below), a user says their SSD speed dropped from 7,000MB/s to 3,000MB/s, and even to as low as 1,000MB/s. Apparently, uninstalling the update returned the SSD speed to 7,000MB/s.
Comment from r/Windows11
The post has a growing number of upvotes, with replies suggesting that other people are experiencing similar issues.
Comment from r/Windows11
Some users also shared screenshots of drive-speed benchmark tools, such as CrystalDiskMark, which show the drop in speed.
From reading the posts, it looks like this bug is only affecting SSDs, not traditional hard drives, and the SSDs that appear to be affected are super-fast NVMe drives. Slower SATA SSDs may not be impacted; or if they are, the drop in speeds might not be as noticeable.
Knock-on effects
Having a once-fast SSD slow down is extremely annoying, and users have also been complaining about how their PCs have been performing noticeably worse after installing the latest update.
One of the biggest complaints has been that Windows 11 now takes longer to boot since the update. Slow boot times used to be one of the biggest annoyances of using a PC, so it’s troubling to see an update reintroduce the issue.
If the latest update is indeed slowing down SSD speeds, then it makes sense that if Windows 11 is installed on an affected SSD it will load more slowly. Elsewhere on Reddit, a user complained that games installed on an SSD are now slower to load.
While we’re not sure how many people are affected by this issue, it does seem like a growing number of people are complaining about it online. If Microsoft has once again pushed out a Windows 11 update that negatively impacts the performance of PCs, then that’s pretty embarrassing for the company.
The good news is that uninstalling the update seems to remove the issue, so if your PC has started performing poorly after you've installed the latest update, try uninstalling it. Hopefully Microsoft will quickly acknowledge the issue, and release a fix that will allow users to install the update without worrying that it’s going to hobble SSD performance.
How to uninstall Windows 11 (KB5023706) update
To uninstall the update, open the Start menu, and type in ‘Windows Update Settings’. From there, click ‘Windows Update’ then ‘View Update History’.
Next, click ‘Uninstall Update’, select KB5023706, then click ‘Uninstall’. Hopefully this will fix the problem; however, you may find that other problems, which the KB5023706 update fixed, will reappear.
