Windows 11 25H2 skipped mouse and keyboard controls in the Windows Recovery Environment, because what would a major update be without a modern batch of bugs

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If your Windows computer experiences sedate problems, you may experience a blue screen. No, not the infamous blue screen of death (which has since changed to the black screen of…death), but… Windows recovery environmentor WinRE for tiny.

Here you can easily fix startup issues, access the command line, and adjust a whole host of significant system settings outside of the regular Windows 11 desktop — or at least you could until you installed the security update released with Windows 11 Multi-User Update 25H2 last week.

According to Microsoft Known issues with Win 11 25H2 page, update KB5066835 stopped USB devices such as keyboard and mouse from working in WinRE. This is of course the main way to control any necessary system recovery tools. Intimidate.

Our Nick tested this issue himself and reported that although he could move the mouse and switch options using the keyboard, each input resulted in about a four-second delay, making it extremely tedious to exploit. Perhaps for some users this isn’t as sedate as Microsoft claims, but it certainly sounds like a frustrating experience to add to a, well, frustrating experience.

Microsoft says it’s working on releasing a fix for this issue in the coming days – which isn’t very convenient if you need a Windows recovery environment in the meantime, but hey ho. At least it’s not as bad as the litany of bugs that appeared with Windows 11’s last major update, 24H2.

(Image source: Microsoft)

Virtually everyone I know has had some sort of problem with it, and while my personal experience is anecdotal, the many, many reports of problems we’ve covered during its release seem to confirm this. What about our personal experiences with Windows 11 25H2 so far? It seems Thinwhich isn’t a huge surprise since it doesn’t seem to be making many major changes on the surface.

However, it appears that appropriate breakthrough changes will be introduced over time and are mainly based on Copilot. Good stuff. I’m sure you’re just as excited about our modern AI PC future. Buckle up, people. I have a feeling this is going to be a wild ride.

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