Windows 11 Moment 5 update reportedly causes a ‘white screen of doom’ along with installation failures

Cumulative update for April is far from a straightforward installation for some users

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

Windows 11users are now receiving theMoment 5 update, which began rolling out a week ago, but some folks have sadly been hit by some frustrating glitches – including a ‘white screen’ crash.

Windows Latestpicked up on a few problems with the April cumulative update for Windows 11, including some folks getting installation failures.

This is a long-running gremlin in the works whereby the update process falls over and doesn’t install, producing an error that is essentially meaningless garbage. (Or asMicrosoftcalls it, a stop error code – a hexadecimal string such as ‘0x800705b9’ which is one of the codes spotted in this instance).

That gives you no clue as to how to resolve the problem, and trying to install again results in the same crash happening with the Moment 5 update. About all you can do is sit tight and hope Microsoft resolves the issue, for now, or try upgrading via theMedia Creation Tool. (Which we wouldn’t recommend to anyone but the more tech-savvy readers out there – if you don’t know what this tool is, best to steer clear on balance).

The other major stumbling block with this April update is a problem that sounds like the white equivalent of the famed Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) whereby the PC is locked up and needs to be rebooted to get back to normal.

Windows Latest describes what they encountered, which is after installing Moment 5 successfully, they got stuck on a white screen. This looks like some kind of setup screen, or indeed one of the panelstrying to push you to do somethingpost-update – like finishing setting up Windows or your Microsoft Account – except it’s blank (save for a couple of tiny icons).

The website notes that they were able to boot to the desktop after disconnecting the internet, and fortunately for Windows Latest, the white screen didn’t return after that.

Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.

Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.

There’s also evidence of this issue onRedditand this thread onMicrosoft’s Answers.comhelp forum, where some folks are saying this white screen keeps coming back.

So, while Windows Latest found it was an issue that went away swiftly, others apparently aren’t so lucky. So we’re calling this the ‘white screen of doom’ as it appears to be persistent at least for some, which must be a real pain.

Analysis: Unplug the internet

What’s interesting to note is that one of the affected people on Answers.com states: “The only thing working for me atm is to start the computer without internet and I don’t get the white screen.” Somebody else replies that they tried this and it worked.

Windows Latest also observes disconnecting from the internet worked to sidestep the white screen, so this is definitely something you should give a whirl if you’re affected by this problem.

This lends some credibility to the idea that this is some kind of nag panel, and it’s failing to pipe through the content from Microsoft’s servers, perhaps – and when you pull the plug on the internet, it stops trying and finally loads the desktop. (That’s purely wild guesswork, mind you).

It’s also worth noting that on the above Reddit thread, there are some consistent mentions of problems with PCs resuming from sleep (or monitors turning back on after waking the system). So that might be one to watch out for, too.

Hopefully, Microsoft is looking into the reports of these problems and will be on hand with some official advice soon enough. We’ve reached out to the company and will update this article with any response to the apparent problems with the April update. Currently, the official support document from Microsoft lists no known issues with Moment 5.

You might also like

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

Windows 11’s Paint and Notepad apps are getting smart new AI features – though one of the best will be for Copilot+ PCs only

Windows 11 24H2 misery continues, as Microsoft’s buggy update is now breaking printers – especially on Copilot+ PCs

Lego will let you build Sir Ernest Shackleton’s iconic lost ship, the Endurance, in its next Icons set