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Cybersecurity

Windows 11 August Update May Crash Some PC Games; Microsoft Investigating, Workarounds Available

Microsoft is investigating reports that Windows 11's August update causes certain games to crash, with workarounds available.

AI News Feed · 2026-08-22 03:16

In some instances, games freeze and become unresponsive, or close abruptly with an "Exception Access Violation" error. There are also reports of spontaneous reboots after a crash. Not all PC games are affected; players of Arc Raiders, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, and The Finals have reported problems.

Microsoft said its "ongoing investigation indicates that this issue is related to peripherals or internal device components which have RGB lighting features." These devices may install drivers or code components with file names similar to inpoutx64. "In systems where these drivers are found, the issue is then triggered by launching certain games," the company added. Microsoft is working to "understand the relationship between these RGB components and the games which trigger this issue."

According to TechRadar, Reddit users theorize the bug stems from "tightened kernel handle validation" introduced in the August update. This security tightening may cause drivers that were previously ignored to trigger conflicts, and when a game's anti-cheat system probes a driver like inpoutx64, a crash occurs. That driver is also used by system utilities such as ZenTimings.

For users affected, two workarounds are available, though Microsoft is still investigating. The first is to uninstall the August update (KB5121003) via Windows Update's Update History. Doing so, however, means missing security fixes and other features. The second is to delete the problematic driver file. TechRadar notes this is at the user's own risk. Instructions: open Command Prompt as administrator, run `sc stop inpoutx64`, then `sc delete inpoutx64`. Afterwards, open File Explorer and delete inpoutx64 files (SYS or DLL) from C:\Windows\System32\drivers.

The outlet advises waiting for Microsoft's investigation results rather than applying the driver removal. The issue appears to be a security fix that causes collateral damage due to driver compatibility, and it may take time to untangle.