Windows 10 marked a major change in Microsoft’s approach to operating systems. The company doesn’t push new “versions” of Windows anymore, but it does roll out regular feature updates to Windows 10. Those updates will end up on your system eventually whether you like it or not, and that hasn’t always been a good thing. Windows 10 updates seem just as likely to break things as improve the OS. Case in point: Following the latest update, many users have reported their systems no longer remain asleep.
Many system updates arrive on Windows automatically, but this one was (thankfully) optional. The update in question is known as KB4535996, which was intended as a small feature patch that would fix ongoing issues with the search bar. It appears to have done that, but it also added some new bugs. Microsoft will no doubt roll out a fix for those, which will introduce some more errors. Round and round we go.
The Microsoft support threads and Twitter are rife with complaints from users who installed the KB4535996 update. The most common annoyance appears to be the sleep issue. According to users, the KB4535996 update causes some computers to periodically wake themselves up from sleep. People even claim this is happening on Microsoft’s own Surface
computers, and it doesn’t matter if the lid is closed — the system still wakes up. Others say their systems will go to sleep, but they won’t wake up. The only way to get back to Windows is a hard reboot.
Some other Windows 10 users say KB4535996 has affected system performance. Some computers just hang during boot, forcing users to use safe mode to remove the update. Although, others say they can’t even access safe mode and had to use the Windows recovery system to get the job done. Our own David Cardinal says KB4535996 has stopped his computer from rebooting — he can only do a full power-off and restart.
If you installed KB4535996 and are having issues, you can remove it from the system fairly easily. Go to the system settings and open “Update and security.” There, you’ll find a Windows Update tab with your full update history. Click the option to uninstall updates at the top of the page and find KB4535996. You’ll be back to having search bar issues, but at least the computer will stay asleep.
Microsoft has come under fire repeatedly over the years for introducing bugs in Windows 10 updates, while simultaneously making it harder for users to opt-out of updates. While KB4535996 has been an annoyance, it’s much less severe than some updates. At least it’s not deleting files.
Windows 10 Update Causing Computers to Continuously Wake from Sleep - ExtremeTech
