Microsoft has released another emergency update for Windows 11 users, following reports of a new issue affecting both physical and Azure cloud machines. This flaw stopped the operating system from booting as it couldn’t load a critical driver.
Windows 11 users and Microsoft’s update team can’t catch a break due to a chain of bugs following the recent May update. The latest of these comes in the form of a boot error indicating that the device needs to be repaired and that the operating system couldn’t load because a required file was missing or contains errors following the installation of the KB5058405 update.
This issue appeared as the ACPI.sys driver failed to load correctly during boot, resulting in error code 0xc0000098. The ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) is a critical system driver that enables Windows to manage hardware resources and power states, hence its importance for the OS to function.
In order to fix this problem, Microsoft has issued the out-of-band (OOB) update KB5062170, which is now available through the company’s update catalogue. Due to the risks involved, Microsoft advises Windows 11 users who have not yet deployed the May 2025 security update to install the fix instead, as it contains all the improvements and fixes included in the May non-security preview.
Furthermore, since this is a cumulative update, you do not need to apply any previous update before installing KB5062170, as it supersedes all previous updates for affected versions. However, note that it doesn’t contain any additional security updates from those available in the May 2025 Windows security update.
Now, regarding machines that are already stuck in with the 0xc0000098 error code, Microsoft recommends the following steps:
- On Recovery-enabled devices:
- Access the Windows Recovery Environment.
- Restart Windows.
- On non-Recovery enabled devices:
- Mount the virtual hard disk (VHD) from a remote device.
- Mount the VHD on another virtual machine (VM) or device as a data disk and then return it back to the affected VM.
- Restart Windows in normal mode. This will revert Windows to the last successfully installed Windows update.
Thankfully, this bug appears to mainly impact enterprise solutions such as virtual Azure environments and machines hosted on Citrix or Hyper-V, unlike the previous one which could hit any machines powered by an Intel vPro processor. In other words, home users and gamers should be safe.
