Windows 10 KB5004237 update

This year’s sixth cumulative update is now rolling out to Windows 10 v21H1, 20H2 and 2004. The patch is available via Windows Update (WU), WSUS and Microsoft Update Catalog. Microsoft has also published direct download links for Windows 10 KB5004237 offline installers.

KB5004237 is a mandatory update with protection against the PrintNightmare vulnerability and other critical bugs. Although it is a security patch, it comes with non-security patches as well, especially when you haven’t installed the optional preview update released last month.

For those using version 21H1, Microsoft is rolling out Windows 10 Build 19043.1110 andit comes with a fix for the blurry taskbar issue. Windows 10 version 20H2 is getting the same update, but it will advance the OS to Windows 10 Build 19042.1110 instead. For those on May 2020 Update (version 2004), they’ll be getting Build 19041.1110.

On supported devices, you will see the following patch when you check for updates:

2021-07 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 20H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5004237)

Download Links for Windows 10 KB5004237

Windows 10 KB5004237 Direct Download Links: 64-bit and 32-bit (x86).

To download updates using Microsoft Update Catalog, simply open the above link and locate the Windows 10 edition/version applied to your desktop. You can find your device configuration by visiting Settings > System > About. Once you’ve located the correct edition/version, click on the “Download” button.

The download button will open a new window with a .msu link and you can paste it into another tab to start the download.

Windows 10 KB5004237 (Build 19043.1110) Full Changelog

Key highlights:

  1. News and Interests blurry widget has been fixed.
  2. Broken taskbar and system tray icons bug has been fixed.
  3. Microsoft has fixed performance issues caused by March/April update.
  4. PrintNightmare bug has been fixed.
  5. Printing issue has been fixed.

As you’re probably aware, Windows 10’s latest monthly security updates have an issue with the taskbar. This problem was first reported after Microsoft enabled News and Interests feed for everyone, and it affects users running May 2021 Update, October 2020 Update and May 2020 Update, and the retired November 2019 Update (version 1909).

KB5004237 update

According to reports and Microsoft’s documentation, the news and interests button in the Windows taskbar might have blurry text. In addition to blurry text, icons may not render properly for other apps, such as To-Do, Chrome, Edge, etc.

Although there’s no mention of a fix for broken taskbar icons bugs in the release notes, in our tests we observed that Microsoft has finally patched this bug. For those unaware, that taskbar bug also corrupted the system tray icons, including notification center and calendar flyout.

Affected users reported that the taskbar icons can vanish entirely due to the buggy updates, impacting the performance of some apps and Windows 10 features, such as sound and notification flyout.

As of July 12, Microsoft hasn’t officially acknowledged the taskbar problems, but if you have these issues, installing today’s cumulative update should help.

If you continue to have taskbar issues, you can change the location of the taskbar and move it to the top of the screen. Or you can also play with the Settings > System > Display > scaling settings. For example, make sure that you use the ‘recommended’ option for your scaling settings.

You can also try re-enabling News and Interests feed.

Performance issues

With today’s security update, Microsoft has finally fixed a bug that caused frame rate problems for PC gamers. The problems came from security updates released in March, with several users reporting that they were seeing stuttering and frame rates lower than expected.

Some users fixed this by installing the recent cumulative updates and others rolled back to older versions.

Windows 10 Build 19043.1110 cumulative update finally addresses a multitude of gaming issues affecting recent versions of Windows. Microsoft has also fixed issues that could result in a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) for some users.

According to the official release notes, Microsoft is not aware of any new issues, but we’ll update this article if we come across a new critical bug.

About The Author

Mayank Parmar

Mayank Parmar is Windows Latest's owner, Editor-in-Chief and entrepreneur. Mayank has been in tech journalism for over seven years and has written on various topics, but he is mostly known for his well-researched work on Microsoft's Windows. His articles and research works have been referred to by CNN, Business Insiders, Forbes, Fortune, CBS Interactive, Microsoft and many others over the years.