Microsoft adds another problem to the Windows 11 24H2 naughty list The trickle of known issues with Windows 11 24H2 has continued with a new one just in time for festive season: installed the operating system using removable media? There's a chance it might stop receiving security updates. According to Microsoft's marketing for its flagship operating system: "Your Windows 11 PC brings layers …
Actually, Boeing went bad when it merged with M-D and its new masters moved it from Seattle to Chicago. The only remaining decent part of Boeing is the plant in Everett, a few miles north of Seattle. Like HP, Boeing is one of many companies that began to smell bad when the beancounters took over from the engineers.
Ci/CD is hard enough to do when you have a limited number of configurations which you can test comprehensively in a similar timescale to your build process.
It's pretty much impossible when there's an almost infinite number of possible configurations, many of which cannot easily be replicated automatically.
The irony is that few people actually seem to want the new features that this accelerated deployment process is intended to foist upon them.
It's FAR more than a bit buggy.
I bought an expensive Lenovo laptop at the end of October. Spent a few hours updating Windows 11, lots of downloads and reboots. It forced me to create an unwanted Microsoft account but I didn't make a note of the account name and password: I never intended to use it, expecting that it would only contain spam, spam and more spam.
I switched on Device Encryption because it promised 'protection from offline unauthorised activity', which seemed a good idea at the time. I downloaded a few browsers and Libre Office, and all seemed well.
There were some optional updates from Lenovo, so I thought I might as well have those, why not?
It suddenly rebooted showing the Blue Screen Of Death. Normally, this is a recoverable incident, but it turned out that my brand new laptop had been irretrievably bricked by BitLocker. I'd never even heard of BitLocker, which was demanding a 48-bit Recovery Key which I didn't have. It wouldn't allow Safe Mode, reinstallation of Windows or any other workaround. It said the key could be found in my Microsoft account, but despite using my phone to try every permutation of what I could hazily remember of my Microsoft account, I couldn't open it. There's absolutely nothing that Microsoft or anyone could do, my entire PC and all its data, photos etc had all been subject to BitLocker's military grade encryption which can't be bypassed without that 48-bit Recovery Key.
Neither Microsoft nor Lenovo bother to warn you that your Microsoft account details (which might have been set up several years ago and not regarded as especially important) MUST be treated like a Bitcoin or Swiss bank account number, otherwise your PC could be irretrievably bricked AND all your data and photos will be lost forever if they weren't securely backed up.
So unless you have the WW3 nuclear codes on your laptop and you're worried you may leave it on a train going to Waterloo, think twice about turning on Device Encryption. Even then you're still not safe if you haven't can't remember your Microsoft account details or the Recovery Key: the Windows 11 24H2 update will turn on encryption by default if you access Windows 11 using a Microsoft account (but it won't if you use a non-Microsoft email account instead).
Fortunately, I'd bought my laptop online, so I was able to return it to Argos within 24 hours of having collected it. To their great credit, Argos took only a few minutes to get the manager's approval for a full refund, courteously and with no quibble at all.
Microsoft and Lenovo must be laughing all the way to the bank.
for getting a refund from Argos.
I tried that with a lawnmower that was made for them. No other retailer sold it. It went phut and would they honour the guarantee? Like Hell they did. They even said that my printed out receipt was a fake.
As the thing was useless, I left it in the middle of the store with a note on it saying that Argos was crap.
Well done. W11 is a POS and well avoided.
When it comes to individual complaints about unsatisfactory service,Trading Standards are an extremely damp squib. You can't even contact Trading Standards directly, they hide behind Citizens Advice. CA warn that "Trading Standards can take businesses to court or stop them operating, but they won’t help you fix your problem - for example, they can’t help you get a refund.
"All complaints received from CA Consumer service are added to our intelligence database to allow us to target our resources at those criminals causing the most detriment to consumers. As we focus our resources on this criminal activity identified on the analysis of this intelligence, it is unlikely you will receive a call about your complaint unless it is part of an ongoing investigation."
The problem is rather that the user is not informed about the consequences. And that, depending on BIOS/TPM settings, Bitlocker encryption is automatically enabled without asking. Lenovo, HP, Dell and other "Office-Type-PC-Brands" have that setting in their BIOS for probably about over ten years now.
If you'd known beforehand what it all entails you would have acted. But you were, IMHO deliberately, left blind.
Edit: Oh, and you can see, if you don't not connect it to an MS account, Bitlocker in an "waiting for activation" state. Don't activate it. Use manage-bde c: -off to get into a clean state (see my answer behind that link). I had quite a number of machines in that state. And then you can activate Bitlocker with the setting YOU choose, or your GPO sets, instead of that Schrödingers-Cat state with the settings neither you or any Admin wants.
In the old days when I was less circumspect about creating accounts and almost everything I did seemed to want one I created an email account for ones that I didn't care about or expect to use again and gave them all the same easily remembered password. It helped me a couple of times, although I never got into the situation you did, thank goodness.
When I last encrypted an Apple Mac disc (years ago now) they did everything bar send someone round to the house to warn me that if I lost the key then all my data were gone.
You know. I hate to be that person but when your device tells you to write something down or put it somewhere safe then that's exactly you do. What did you think would happen? It's like installing Linux and just bashing the keyboard when it tells you to set your password like thinking to yourself "I don't need this, I'll be ok". Personally I don't use bitlocker for this exact reason and I have no use for it but if my computer did on the off chance get locked out from bitlocker and I only had it a couple of days I would just re-install. I don't understand why you didn't just do that. In fact every laptop I have ever owned gets flattened before I go anywhere near it to remove all the crap they put on them.
Why are Microsoft and Lenovo laughing? You got a full refund and some clown has to set it up again so it can be sold for less as used. What have they actually gained here? Am I missing something here? I can't stand Microsoft generally but it's a necessary evil for some things.
• "When your device tells you to write something down or put it somewhere safe then that's exactly you do"
Nope, as previously explained my device did no such thing.
(1) M$ failed to warn me that a critically important Recovery Key would be stored in my M$ account. This was only revealed by a link on the Blue Screen of Death, AFTER BitLocker had permanently bricked my laptop.
(2) M$ failed to warn me that I needed to find my Recovery Key immediately and then keep it safely written down on paper.
(3) M$ failed to warn me that I wouldn't be able to discover my Recovery Key if (i) I'd used an M$ account but then forgotten its username / password or (ii) I'd used a non-M$ email account which was no longer supported. Many big names have closed their email services (e.g. Tesco, Powergen, John Lewis, Waitrose), and many ISPs hold you to ransom by closing and locking your email address if you dare to leave them (e.g. Virgin Media / Blueyonder).
• "What did you think would happen?". As previously explained, I expected to have no use for an M$ account because it would only be used to spam me about unwanted M$ products and services. I'd have opened a new M$ account if I needed one at some future time.
• "Personally I don't use bitlocker for this exact reason and I have no use for it." As previously explained, I didn't even know I was using BitLocker until it bricked my laptop. I thought the encryption was used only against malevolent third parties, not against the laptop owner. I'd expected it to be like WhatsApp, it's encrypted but it's just there behind the scenes, the end user doesn't need to fiddle around under the bonnet and get their hands dirty.
• "if my computer did on the off chance get locked out from bitlocker and I only had it a couple of days I would just re-install. I don't understand why you didn't just do that." As previously explained, BitLocker would NOT allow Safe Mode, re-installation of Windows (no CDs and CD drives these days, and I hadn't had time to make a USB backup) or any other workaround. Not even M$ can defeat BitLocker's military standard 48-bit encryption, that's its purpose.
• "Why are Microsoft and Lenovo laughing? You got a full refund and some clown has to set it up again so it can be sold for less as used. What have they actually gained here? Am I missing something here?" Yes, you're missing a lot. You missed ALL the above points that I thought I'd explained, and you're missing the fact that by bricking new devices M$ they benefit by flogging more Windows 11 licences and Lenovo flog more laptops
Others may be more knowledgeable, but I suspect that my bricked laptop will just be scrapped because of the costs and difficulties associated with physically replacing all the embedded encrypted solid state drives.
BitLocker doesn't apply at the hardware level i.e. you can still install Linux on your 'bricked' laptop by simply deleting the encrypted partition. Most Linux installers will guide you through this, and warn you that you are deleting the original OS and all its data (but that's fine because it is unreadable anyway)
It's unclear who lost out, Argos or Lenovo (one of whom has to re-image and flog a new laptop as 'reconditioned'), but certainty not Microsoft who are the real culprits.
BitLocker is a shit experience all round and just makes Microsoft sound like a ransomware gang! Of course they have your key, and would have given it up to any government agency that asked for it.
IMO this is a deliberate strategy, one of many, to 'punish' those who do not want to be forced to use a Microsoft Account.
If you don't want your life on Microsoft's cloud, you should be using Linux. Maybe give Mint a try?
Thanks. I'm not an anorak, but whatever I did I just couldn't get away from the BSOD. It kept on insisting on having the correct 48-bit Recovery Key entered, and refused point blank to allow anything else to happen, there was absolutely no escape. How would you get around that?
M$ seems to punish M$ account users more heavily because it activates BitLocker by default for them, whereas you have to opt in to encryption if you use a non-M$ account. If BitLocker is going to be active by default then it's imperative to have lots of tick boxes and bold red warnings: you should have to agree that you've found your Recovery Key and have written it down safely on paper before BitLocker can be activated.
I'll investigate some flavour of Linux but the last time I tried it on on a previous Windows laptop the Linux cupboard seemed a bit bare so I didn't pursue it. Do you have to start again from scratch with apps such as Firefox and Libre Office?
> there was absolutely no escape. How would you get around that?
There is no way around that, except maybe by suing Microsoft and forcing them to hand over your key, or if you know a friendly policeman, they can use Microsoft's law enforcement portal to request your key. Indeed there have been instances of thieves/stalkers pretending to be government agents in order to get access to that portal, so BitLocker really is worse than useless
If you were setting up encryption on Linux then it would use a local password only, there is no recovery key as such. If you forget the encryption password then you won't get past the boot screen until you either remember it or reinstall
The difference (and problem) with BitLocker is that it doesn't trust the user to set and remember a strong password that is used nowhere else, so it generates one (the recovery key) and writes it down for you (In the TPM module which is programmed to forget it if you install a new PCIe device, change a BIOS setting or look at it cock-eyed, and in Microsoft's cloud)
I'm not sure what you mean by "start again from scratch" but there are certainly ways to migrate a Firefox user profile (history, bookmarks, etc) from Windows to Linux.
I'm a Debian user for the last 20 years, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who might describe me as an Anorak ;) it has various derivatives to make it more accessible to Microsoft refugees though.
I hear good things about Mint from new users, so that's why I recommended it. There's also LMDE which is Mint without the Ubuntu stuff, that's what I would install if I wanted to try Mint personally.
"BitLocker doesn't apply at the hardware level i.e. you can still install Linux on your 'bricked' laptop by simply deleting the encrypted partition. Most Linux installers will guide you through this, and warn you that you are deleting the original OS and all its data (but that's fine because it is unreadable anyway)"
On many new laptops and PCs you can't access the UEFI directly once Bitlocker has been enabled, the only way to get into it is through the Windows Bootloader. And they don't allow booting of other drives.
> On many new laptops and PCs you can't access the UEFI directly once Bitlocker has been enabled, the only way to get into it is through the Windows Bootloader. And they don't allow booting of other drives.
WTF, really?
So if you have borked your Windows bootloader somehow, it's truly bricked? Surely not, there must be -some- workaround.. What if you use Jou(Mytzplyc)'s suggestion and tell Win10 to show the boot menu, presumably then you can access UEFI before boot, including after a BitLocker trip?
Personally I have never in the last 25 years bought a complete Desktop PC, I always just buy the components, so I have never seen this level of evil applied to a desktop. Laptops yes I have seen some evil BIOS shenanigans, but nothing on this level - Even on a Dell XPS15 work laptop I was able to dual-boot Debian by purchasing a second SSD for it, but then again it was running Win10, I refused to have Win11
I recently, scant days ago, got a new £2.5K MSI gaming lappy. I left it for 24 hours to acclimatise and charged it. The stat of setup seemed OK, it accepted my non Microsoft account and with no warning, apart from "do not turn your computer off" it happily tried updating and then failed into a reboot cycle. I have tried all I can think of to get it working again, but the fucker is bricked.
I can't even refer to a user manual because that is on disk, there is no backup or restore media, so it looks like I might have to USB it into a flavour of Linux, get my own win11 for dual boot and pray.
Reason for windows? I have over 300 games on my gog account and I still want to be able to access them and play them - so many memories of the old games that I need to relive.
I know I could return it, but this is a situation I will not let beat me. I will not allow myself to be bested by microshit.
Can't wait to see the downvotes accumulate.
Sorry, I should have qualified my downvote sentence.
What I ought to have said was something along the lines of;
"I should have thought more carefully and got a lappy I wanted, had a Linux installed with a driver for the graphics card and then, if I knew how (but unfortunately don't) run win11 as a vm for my gog collection." The gpu is a something or other 4090 or something like that, too much Guinness on a Friday, unless that's the problem.
Phew, sorted that out in my own head now.
I don't know about Gog, but gaming on Linux via Steam is a breeze these days. Just 'apt install steam' and then settings -> compatibility -> "Enable SteamPlay for all titles". I also have hundreds of old (and new) games, and they generally work flawlessly. I even have VR games released for Windows that work perfectly out of the box. No VM required. Maybe Gog has a similar way to make use of Proton? Look up your old games on protondb.com to see if they work.
Your graphics card sounds like a NVidia one, so on Debian this would be: apt install nvidia-driver. Note that for both nvidia and steam you need to have 'non-free' software enabled in your apt config (this doesn't mean you have to pay, it just means closed-source software)
Edit: Maybe try 'minigalaxy'
Package: minigalaxy; Description: Simple GOG Linux client. Allows you to download and play Linux games from the gog.com game store.
Apparently it will also run Windows games via Wine (which is what Proton is based on) and no doubt there is a way to make it use Proton itself.
As an example, i got zapped by a neutral on one distribution panel, because someone had it connected to a circuit from A COMPLETELY SEPARATE PANEL IN A DIFFERENT PART OF THE BUILDING. Me opening the main disconnect isolated half the building, but the backfeed from that made the entire neutral bar live.. People will do shit that should NEVER happen, you can't protect against that. Have a third beer
> Reason for windows? I have over 300 games on my gog account
Get as old as me... > 1000, though some of them (around 100) from the time your could get a free GOG copy from games if you already had them on Steam. Oh yes, I have Steam too of course. And Epic. And EA. And Battle.net. And Ubi... And then add several hundred PC games from the time before Steam. And then some more from before my PC time.
Below the currently frigged up UI there is a lot in that OS which is good. You can, if somewhat clean written, run VERY old programs without issue. Annoyed by that 0.6354E-7 notation of calc.exe? Copy calc.exe from Windows NT 3.51 over to Windows 11. Want the original PBRUSH experience? Copy the .exe from NT 3.51. When you loved basic (the C16/Plus4/C128 basic with more capabilities though + builtin-Assember for speedy stuff) you can do so much in powershell. Latest example: OK, now I have my solar control (4 second cycle, WLAn cannot do more) and my solar statistic data (per Minute from several sources ans Shellys + including RS485 serial from Growatt MIC) -> Hm, I want it colorful as graph since after over a half year the numbers are not nice enough. OK use builtin [System.Drawing.*]::* , i.e. DOTNET directly. Ls little thing: "Invert image in powershell with color change" since the produced graph is way too bright as windows background -> All those examples on the internet are way too slow since they do it pixel by pixel? But wait [System.Drawing.Imaging.ColorMatrix] is there, that is the speed I want, and so put it online as "Transform-ImageColor.ps1" example since there was no complete working and fast example...
So yeah, quite a part of Windows is fucked up, but it can be handled. But I still often enough have to deal with Linux due to my > 10 years experience as heavy Linux user from Kernel 0.9something up to 2.2.something, more than the "Use it as browser/mail/videoplayer". So I get enough reminders what to hate about Linux too :D - in the end not better, just a different shade of s. And don't get me started about Apple dictatorship here...
1. For reasons of Lenovo, Lenovo has been shipping most (all?) of their laptops with BitLocker turned on for some time now. Whichever account is used to set the laptop up is the BitLocker account, with the BitLocker key. Do not lose it or you're fucked. This laptop has two fingers set up for the fingerprint reader, a six-digit PIN, and a 15-character passphrase. Yes, it was annoying to set all that up.
2. For reasons of I'm bloody paranoid, the very first thing that I do is record in my little notebook and in my spreadsheet (the notebook is stored in a locked drawer in a fire-resistant file cabinet, and the spreadsheet is NOT stored on the laptop or on anything cloudy) and the second thing is to make a FULL backup of EVERYTHING on the new device, BEFORE performing any updates of any kind whatsoever. (The backup goes into the file cabinet as well). I also generate an external Windows install media setup on a USB thumb drive; if absolutely necessary, I can nuke and pave and then run a full restore. I also generate an Ubuntu install USB, if Windows gives me backchat then Ubuntu goes on the system. Yes, I turn on full access to the BIOS/UEFI and ensure that Secure Boot is unlockable just in case SB gets annoying about Ubuntu. I use Acronis for backup, so I have another USB drive with an Acronis emergency boot setup. Thumb drives are cheap and plentiful.
3. For reasons of Lenovo is full of it, I am VERY hesitant about installing Lenovo 'updates'. Lenovo is bad, but they're better than HP or (ick) Dell, so I put up with them. There are currently two Lenovo 'updates' available for this laptop. I'll get around to installing them, one at a time, probably before the end of the year. Or maybe not.
I deal with home users. Many of those couldn't tell you the Microsoft Account that they used to set up Windows - it may not be their usual email address, the recovery details may have changed since, or it was set up by a retailer (such as Currys) that set them up with a brand new Microsoft Account to get their laptop set up. That bit of paper with the details? Long gone.
Doesn't seem like that big a deal until something goes wrong, everything is locked behind Bitlocker and the files / Microsoft 365 / passwords and bookmarks are all backed up to that Microsoft Account.
I thought that checking for backups / Onedrive sync before doing maintenance was enough. Now I've added 'check for bitlocker' and 'write down the Microsoft account' to that list.
The rest of the article is unnecessary.
I've said it before and I full expect to say it again. TRADING STANDARDS NEEDS TO GROW A PAIR AND TELL MICROS~1 TO PROVIDE SOFTWARE THAT IS FIT FOR PURPOSE OR JUST CEASE AND DESIST. I don't care if they whinge "software is hard". FMCG is hard if you want to make it safe and resilient. Cars is hard if you want to make it safe and resilient. Even food is hard if you want to make it safe and resilient. Everything is hard if you want to make it safe and resilient. Why do software companies think they count as special?
In Q2 Microsoft offered, for a short while, a corrupted ISO of Server 2022. Updates not possible. Solution from Microsoft: Repair-In-Place-upgrade with an older or newer ISO.
Works fine for some Servers, for Domain Controllers it is an extra hassle. And for some it is not possible in first place since it nukes the installed software. The latter got a "Server 2022 to Server 2022" migration. Even though they were just migrated from an older OS to Server 2022. Tons of money which Microsoft has not to pay for, simply 'cause of their too bad QA.
The priorities of Microsoft at the top of that company are worse than ever, making me wishing Ballmer and Gates back.
When I read this sort of thing I get a warm feeling of satisfaction with my Win 10 system which will never be upgraded to 11. It soldiers on with occasional strange hiccups but nothing fatal. As for the M$ account, I don't have one. I did for a bit but it never seemed to serve a useful purpose so I nuked it.
Unfortunately, there have been a few odd glitches recently which are pushing me on towards the final full transfer to Linux.
Wait for Windows 12. It will be the best Windows ever. Until then I suspect most normal Windows 10 installations will get the important security updates since MS cannot reliably tell which ones have the right license (i.e. paid) for extra updates. Was that way for various other Windows versions as well.
I finally replaced my old Win7 machine that was literally falling apart. I bought a Win11 machine, which oddly would not allow me to access the boot menu until I configured it for 11 including making a new account. I immediately set it up to run Cinnamon Mint, my first foray into running a Linux machine. So far so good, there were a few minor hiccups to figure out but everything is working smoothly. I'm liking it a LOT.
The big test will be in a few weeks when I do my taxes. If all goes well, I'll reinstall Cinnamon on my machine as a full wipe to eliminate Windows from my house altogether. Well, aside from the work machine, but that doesn't count and won't exist in a couple of years either.
Reactivate boot menu right at the start: Open CMD.EXE with admin rights.
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} timeout 5
And then you have your five seconds back to hit F8. Depending on your scenario, like the fast vmware web console or the sometimes superfast-start hyper-v console, 20 seconds timeout is recommended.
(Why does PRE tag on TheReg add four empty lines long distance between the lines? And why does CODE tag create create so much space it looks line an empty line?)
Installed 24h2 onto a laptop and it was as laggy as hell. A similar spec laptop on 23h2 is fine
Put 23h2 onto the first laptop and it is responsive again - both Lenovo, so not a mix and match like my main box and drivers from Lenovo installed
24h2 is not fit for release
Sounds like encryption is now active. If you logged in with a Microsoft account then the 24H2 update will have activated encryption by default. Data is encrypted when written to disk and decrypted when being read back, and it's been widely reported that these processes can slow down your device by up to 45%.
BitLocker can be falsely triggered by an update, as I discovered the hard way, so make sure that you have written down your 48-bit Recovery Key securely on paper !
> Data is encrypted when written to disk and decrypted when being read back, and it's been widely reported that these processes can slow down your device by up to 45%.
That must be very VERY old. Like pre-dualcore-hyperthreading-x86-CPU-old. Please cite sources. Neither Linux nor Windows encryption have that effect, with the exception when you just turned it on or off and it is still busy encrypting/decrpyting THE WHOLE VOLUME(s) in background.
This post has been deleted by its author
Ah, they test with synthetic benchmarks the maximum speed NVME Samsung 990 Pro 4TB. Though the results for the unencrypted look strange, I've soon other testers getting much better results.
Of course you can find the weak performance spot of any encryption, not just Bitlocker. On top there is the issue Windows cache behaving different when Bitlocker is enabled to prevent data corruption, doing more forced flushes. But missing are more real world examples, full application benchmarks. For my systems in real world usage there is no noticable difference between encryted and non-encrypted, no matter whether Linux or Windows. But that depends on your usage scenario. Or whether you have 24h2, where the bitlocker performance hit is the smaller issue :D.
Why Windows prefers software encryption nowadays, as the article mentions: Hardware encryption has shown to be too weak, too easy to crack in too many cases due to implementation errors, and other problems since hardware encryption can be buggy too (search for The Reg articles about that). You have to enable hardware encryption manually.
...and keeps getting better :-)
Honestly, I used Windows at work before I retired, and it was...okay, I guess. But there seemed to be more and more "Don't turn off your computer, Windows is updating" messages, and the UI kept changing (most recently, the left pane of the file explorer, which seems to have developed a mind of its own, focussed on getting you to embrace OneDrive). I can't be bothered to run it at home.
Ugh, OneDrive.
Our IT recommended using it to transfer local files when replacing a PC.
Nice idea in theory, except for the minor detail that it doesn't work at all.
Enabling "backup" immediately moved the contents of My Documents, thus breaking literally everything and making it impossible for anyone to find any documents at all.
It then took down the office Internet connection, as a hundred people tried to upload and then download a few GB simultaneously over a link sized for SAP and email.
And then half the documents vanished anyway, because nobody could tell whether it had finished - or afford to wait, anyway.
They don't suggest it anymore.
Yes...Microsoft's idea of what "backup" means seems to differ from mine. Windows really wants you to be using OneDrive as your primary and local storage as secondary (at least, that's how it seems to me). There didn't seem to be any way to do the opposite (local storage is primary, copied to OneDrive) when I looked into it. I suspect it's doable, but difficult and unreliable.
Also, when copying large numbers of files, Windows progress bar has a nasty habit of disappearing...lost some files that way, because I thought it had finished.
The only reason that I'm hanging onto Windows at all is that a couple of my (large company) customers are wedded to Word, Excel and Powerpoint, plus my main CAD program only runs under Windows. I will only need these for 2 more years until I retire.
TBH, I don't really care what operating system I use so long as:
1/ It does the job of facilitating my getting work done;
2/ Doesn't get in the way of me doing 1.
Whisper it but I'm pretty happy generally with Win 10 and I actually like the start menu, although my daily use machine is Linux Mint.
There's another angle.
They may want to look at simple consumer law.
Fairly sure UK and US law are somewhat the same.
Key phrase is "fit for purpose".
You sell a spade to someone they expect to be able to dig holes with it.
You sell an operating system to someone they have a reasonable expectation that it will run their apps without crapping itself.
Selling a product that doesn't "do what it says on the tin" is fraud-adjacent.
Just saying.
Windows 11 24H2 also includes a surprise feature for 4k monitors that run on a Celeron processor, by preserving screen lifetime by showing a completely black screen.
If you have a 2k monitor that works OK. However Windows only vaguely recognises a 4k monitor is connected but treats it a 600x800 size and refuses to use it. The Intel control panel recognises the 4k exists but is unable to enable it.
The fix is to install the updated Intel driver released on 19 December 2024. It gave the option to do a clean install, which was taken.
I have no idea if installing the driver update before 24H2 would avoid the free bork, but it was handy to have a spare 2k monitor to plug in while getting the big screen working again.
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