July’s Windows 11 Patch Tuesday Update is now rolling out. Showing up as KB5015814 in Windows Update, this month’s release is a big one, coming with the usual security fixes, and just one big tweak related to PowerShell. It also delivers the Search Highlights feature from last month’s preview update to a wider audience. Here’s the scoop on what you need to know.
Today’s Patch Tuesday update bumps the latest public non-insider version of Windows 11 up to OS build 22000.795. The big fix addresses an issue that redirects the PowerShell command output so that transcript logs do not contain any output of the command. Consequently, the decrypted password is lost. As for the security fixes, Microsoft dives deeper into that in a separate blog post.
Other than that, today’s update also brings the same improvements and features as part of KB5014668 (released June 23, 2022). As a reminder, that update first tested Search Highlights outside of the Windows Insider program. Here’s what Microsoft says about Search Highlights (though you might want to turn it off by going to the “show search highlights” toggle, under privacy and security, and search permissions in Windows 11’s settings.)
Search highlights will present notable and interesting moments of what’s special about each day—like holidays, anniversaries, and other educational moments in time both globally and in your region. To see search highlights, click or tap on the search icon on your taskbar.
For enterprise customers, search highlights will also feature the latest updates from your organization and suggest people, files, and more.
There are two known issues in this update, which have persisted over the past two Patch Tuesday releases. You might notice that after installing this update, some .NET Framework 3.5 apps might have issues or might fail to open. You can fix it by re-enabling .NET Framework 3.5 and the Windows Communication Foundation in Windows Features. The second known issue impacts IE Mode tabs in Edge not responding. This can be fixed using Known Issue Rollback.
While we have you, we’ll also mention Windows 10’s Patch Tuesday updates. All modern and supported versions of Windows 10 will be getting KB5015807. Depending on your Windows version, it’s either OS Builds 19042.1826, 19043.1826, or 19044.1826. These just bring security fixes with no new features.
