Windows 11 has been available to download for a week now, and it feels like new flaws in the operating system are being discovered with each passing day. Unfortunately, the trend shows no signs of stopping. As reported by TechSpot, compatibility issues with applications that use non-ASCII characters in their registry keys are causing Windows 11 to crash.
Microsoft has confirmed and listed the problem on its official ‘Windows 11 known issues and notifications’ web page, and have applied a compatibility hold on devices that are identified as being at risk. This means that affected machines that have not yet upgraded from Windows 10 will be unable to install the new OS, with the company explicitly stating that it does not recommend users try to manually upgrade until this defect is resolved.
To make matters worse, “affected registry keys with non-ASCII characters might not be able to be repaired”, Microsoft states. This could mean that you won’t be able to fix your current installation and might have to reinstall Windows 11 without the problematic applications.
Thankfully, Microsoft is working on numerous fixes for other recently reported bugs plaguing Windows 11 and its early adopters. Currently, the operating system is negatively affecting performance of AMD Ryzen CPUs by as much as 15%, and its insatiable appetite for RAM is giving Google Chrome a run for its money.
It’s still early days for Windows 11 but there are a couple of new features that should greatly appeal to anyone with a gaming PC, such as Auto-HDR which provides HDR colour grading to games that do not currently support native HDR. Wi-Fi Dual Station also improves wireless gaming performance, and was co-developed by Valve with all its Steam expertise.