Microsoft is investigating a potential issue with the August 2026 updates that may prevent some games from launching or cause them to crash on affected Windows 11 systems.
The confirmation follows user reports that a limited number of games, including ARC Raiders, MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls, and The Finals, become unresponsive on devices running Windows 11, version 25H2, and Windows 11, version 24H2.
The complete list of symptoms users are experiencing on impacted systems includes:
- games freezing
- games closing without notice
- "EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION" errors
- and unexpected system restarts
"Following the release of Windows updates on August 11, 2026 (KB5121003) and later, Microsoft received reports of issues involving inability to run games as expected," Microsoft said in a Windows release health dashboard update on Wednesday.
"We are presently investigating to determine if this is an issue caused by Microsoft. We will provide an update when more information is available."
The KB5121003 update was released last week as part of the August 2026 Patch Tuesday with Secure Boot updates and File Explorer and Windows Search improvements.
Microsoft also asked gamers experiencing these issues to file a report via the Feedback Hub app.
Unofficial workaround available
Embark Studios, the Swedish video game developer behind The Finals first-person shooter, says these issues are caused by changes to the inpoutx64.sys Windows kernel driver.
"We're aware of a crash that has been impacting some players since the most recent Windows update (KB5121003). This is a crash related to the file inpoutx64.sys, which changed with the Windows update," Embark said on Monday.
"We're working towards a long-term fix that we hope to deploy ASAP, but in the meantime, as you may have seen on Reddit and other places, there is a work-around solution that will safely remove the file in question and allow you to play the game without issue."
Until Microsoft ships an official fix for the issue, Embark shared a multi-step temporary workaround that requires users to stop and delete the service and remove the inpoutx64 file from the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\ folder.
This isn't the first time Windows updates have caused performance and stability issues for Windows gamers. For instance, in October 2024, Microsoft blocked Windows 24H2 upgrades on some systems because of known issues that caused Easy Anti-Cheat blue screens and Asphalt 8 game crashes.
Last year, it also lifted a compatibility hold added after confirming that the Auto HDR Windows feature was breaking some games on Windows 11 24H2 systems.
More recently, it removed several upgrade blocks that prevented players of Asphalt 8: Airborne, Assassin's Creed, Star Wars Outlaws, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora from upgrading their devices to the latest Windows version.
Update August 20, 08:33 EDT: Added Embark Studios troubleshooting information.
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