Windows 11 Update Breaks Recovery Environment, Making USB Keyboards and Mice Unusable

"Windows Recovery Environment (RE), as the name suggests, is a built-in set of tools inside Windows that allow you to troubleshoot your computer, including booting into the BIOS, or starting the computer in safe mode," writes Tom's Hardware. "It's a crucial piece of software that has now, unfortunately, been rendered useless (for many) as part of the latest Windows update."A new bug discovered in Windows 11's October build, KB5066835, makes it so that your USB keyboard and mouse stop working entirely, so you cannot interact with the recovery UI at all. This problem has already been recognized and highlighted by Microsoft, who clarified that a fix is on its way to address this issue. Any plugged-in peripherals will continue to work just fine inside the actual operating system, but as soon as you go into Windows RE, your USB keyboard and mouse will become unresponsive. It's important to note that if your PC fails to start-up for any reason, it defaults to the recovery environment to, you know, recover and diagnose any issues that might've been preventing it from booting normally. Note that those hanging onto old PS/2-connector equipped keyboards and mice seem to be unaffected by this latest Windows software gaffe.

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