Microsoft probes reports of games taking exception to Windows 11's August update

Microsoft is investigating reports of games crashing after users installed August's Patch Tuesday update for Windows 11.

The company acknowledged the reports on its Release Health page.

Affected games may become unresponsive, close unexpectedly, throw an "EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION" error, or trigger an unexpected device restart.

Reports of the problem followed the release of KB5121003 for Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2.

The KB5121003 support page still lists no known issues, but Microsoft has separately confirmed on Release Health that it is investigating the game crash reports.

The problem does not affect every title.

Microsoft named ARC Raiders, MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls, and The Finals among those generating reports.

The Windows giant has not accepted responsibility, writing: "We are presently investigating to determine if this is an issue caused by Microsoft." Users have theorized that tighter kernel handle validation may have exposed problems in third-party drivers that Windows previously tolerated, causing crashes when code ventures where it should not.

That might be good for security, but less so for software that depended on the previous behavior.

Microsoft has not confirmed the theory.

August's Patch Tuesday was a big one, addressing 421 Microsoft CVEs, including 236 affecting Windows.

As such, uninstalling it as a workaround is probably not a good idea.

The reports come as Microsoft tightens its treatment of old and incompatible kernel drivers.

In March, it removed trust for kernel drivers that hadn't been through the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program (WHCP) to lock down the Windows kernel further.