#Microsoft Broke the Windows 11 Start Menu and Taskbar With an Ad

We all make mistakes. But when you’re Microsoft, and you mistake that breaks Windows 11, it tends to get a little more attention. That’s precisely what happened when Microsoft pushed an ad to Windows 11 that broke the Start Menu and Taskbar.

What Happened To Windows 11?

Microsoft pushed a promotional notification to Windows 11 users, and one particular one that was touting Windows 11’s integration with Teams seems to have broken the Start Menu and Taskbar of the OS.

RELATED: How to Use Teams Chat in Windows 11

Basically, the ad would cause the Windows desktop shell to crash, which rendered two of the core functionalities of the OS unusable. In fact, it made it almost impossible to do anything with a Windows 11 PC.

Thankfully, Microsoft posted a fix for the problem, and it’s easy enough to deal with. It applies to both builds 22000.176 and 22449. Here are the steps posted by the company:

Step 1: Use CTRL-ALT-DEL and choose to open Task Manager.
Step 2: Choose “More details” at the bottom of Task Manager to expand Task Manager.
Step 3: Go to “File” and choose “Run new task”.
Step 4: Type “cmd” in the “Open” field.
Step 5: Paste the following (everything in bold):
reg delete HKCUSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionIrisService /f && shutdown -r -t 0
Step 6: Hit enter, and then your PC should reboot. After rebooting, everything should be back to normal.

Thank you again for your patience #WindowsInsiders – If you were impacted by this issue, you can use the steps added to the top of these blog posts to get back into a working state on your PC:
Build 22000.176 https://t.co/dpwehA9nTJ
Build 22449 https://t.co/oathE7BE5U https://t.co/ouO6sh8vLj

— Windows Insider (@windowsinsider) September 3, 2021

While it’s a bit of pain, at least Microsoft was quick to get a fix out. Hopefully, these promoted notifications don’t cause future issues for Windows 11, especially after it launches on October 5.

RELATED: It’s Official: Windows 11 Has a Release Date