- Microsoft has released an emergency patch for a nasty bug
- Disabled the recovery environment on Windows 11 25H2
- This is the feature that helps you recover from boot error
Microsoft quickly rolled out an emergency patch for Windows 11 outside of its usual update schedule to fix a major issue with the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE).
XDA Developers spotted the ‘out-of-band’ update that Microsoft just released, known as patch KB5070773 for Windows 11 25H2. It was the last cumulative update (from October) and included the version 25H2 bug, which prevented USB keyboards and mice from working in WinRE.
WinRE is the feature that kicks in if your PC won’t boot, so it’s vital when a disaster strikes your Windows 11 system and you need to recover. The inability to use the mouse or keyboard makes the environment effectively useless.
In other words, those with Windows 11 25H2 who got the October update and then had a serious problem with their PC, had no luck resolving that problem using traditional recovery methods.
Analysis: don’t sit back and do nothing – update
As you can imagine, you really don’t want to get stuck in a boot failure problem without a recovery paddle. Therefore, if you are running Windows 11 25H2 with the latest October update applied, I highly recommend that you download this emergency patch today; in fact, now.
Windows Update will install the patch, so what you need to do is head to that panel in the Settings app (just type ‘Windows Update’ in the taskbar search box). Then click ‘Check for Updates’ to do just that, and you should see the KB5070773 patch. At this point, I imagine Microsoft has this available for all Windows 11 25H2 PCs (considering it was first rolled out late yesterday and given its importance).
If you don’t see the update, your system may have already installed it, although you may have seen some indication of it. It’s possible to miss these things, mind you, and you can always double-check your update history (in the Windows Update panel) to see if KB5070773 is listed.
If you are not offered this patch and you definitely don’t have it yet, you can install the update manually, as long as you are confident enough in your Windows 11 PC to do so. In that case, as XDA points out, you can find the patch available for download here in the Microsoft Update Catalog.
Not long ago, in August 2025, Microsoft broke the ability to reset a Windows 11 PC, again requiring an emergency fix, so the software giant is on a roll when it comes to putting effort into recovery efforts.
