Why it matters: Early adopters of Microsoft's Windows 11 operating system have had to contend with the usual collection of bugs and glitches, ranging from performance regressions to printing issues and everything between. Some people may even find they can't use some built-in apps, but luckily there's a fix for that.
Windows 11 is evolved from Windows 10, which is both a blessing and a curse. Microsoft has spent the past several years perfecting Windows 10, which means its successor is also based on a relatively mature core. At the same time, it has inherited various bugs and glitches that some early adopters have discovered in the past few weeks.
One notable issue is related to printers, which don't seem to work in certain scenarios. Other issues are less visible to the average user, such as memory leaks in File Explorer when opening several windows on a daily basis, something that can lead to less RAM being available for any other apps you might use.
More recently, someone discovered that Windows 11 can flood your HDD or SSD with thousands of empty folders. This won't impact performance or take any significant amount of space on your storage drive, but it's a perfect example of old Windows 10 warts reappearing in Windows 11.
This week, some of you may have also found that you can no longer use or even open certain built-in apps such as Get Started, Tips, Snipping Tool, Touch Keyboard, Voice Typing, Emoji Panel, and Input Method Editor user interface (IME UI), as well as the accounts page and landing page in the Settings app for Windows 11 S users.
Microsoft says the issue only affects people that have not yet installed the KB5006746 update that was released on October 21, and S mode users are more likely to experience this problem.
The affected apps rely on a certificate that expired on October 31, and the best way to solve this problem is to manually install the latest update, as it will renew the expired certificate. KB5006746 is currently marked as an optional update, but it will soon be offered to everyone as part of the November Patch Tuesday update.