Windows 11’s August update is crashing games: Microsoft explains why

Microsoft released update KB5121003 on Patch Day in August . But KB5121003 is causing quite a stir: the patch causes Windows 11 to crash in the middle of games. The issue is reportedly triggered by a driver for RGB lighting functions, and Microsoft has now confirmed this.

In recent days, an increasing number of gamers have reported that Windows 11 has been causing problems since the installation of KB5121003. Games would stop responding, error messages would appear, and Windows would crash completely. Microsoft has now confirmed these issues in the support document for KB5121003:

Microsoft has received reports of issues where certain games cannot run as expected after installing this update.

Ongoing investigations suggest that this issue is related to certain peripherals or internal device components that support RGB lighting features. These devices may install drivers or software components with filenames similar to ‘inpoutx64’. On systems where these drivers are present, launching certain games may trigger this issue.

Games mentioned in reports of this issue include ‘ARC Raiders’, ‘MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls’ and ‘THE FINALS’. Reported symptoms include:

• The game application stops responding.
• The game application closes without warning.
• The error message “EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION” is displayed.
• The device restarts without warning.

If you experience this or a similar issue, please submit a report via the Feedback Hub. You can open the Feedback Hub by pressing the Windows logo key F.

Microsoft is currently investigating how these RGB-related components interact with the affected games. Further details will be announced as soon as they become available. In the meantime, the following workaround is available.

Workaround

This issue can be prevented by temporarily disabling the inpoutx64 driver via the Windows Registry. Important: You should be familiar with the Registry before making any changes to it.

Microsoft describes the workaround as follows:

Open the Windows Registry. To do this, open the Start menu and type “regedit”. Select “Registry Editor” from the results.

Navigate to the key ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesinpoutx64’. You can do this using the folders on the left-hand side of the window or by entering the path into the address bar at the top of the window.

Note

Make sure you have backed up the registry as per the important note above. This may be necessary if you need to undo the change in the following steps.

On the right-hand side of the window, locate the registry value named ‘Start’. Double-click this key and enter the number 4 in the ‘Value data’ field.

Close the window and restart your computer.

Microsoft warns:

Please note that disabling this registry key may lead to unintended behaviour, such as problems with RGB functions on peripherals or components, or issues with the software used to control the RGB functions. Should such problems occur and you wish to restore functionality, you can re-enable the driver by resetting the registry key to its previous value. You can restore the registry by following the steps described in ‘How to back up and restore the registry in Windows’.