Microsoft has acknowledged that there’s a bug introduced by recent Windows 10 updates that can break a piece of taskbar functionality – but the good news is a fix is in the works.
The problem is evident for some Windows 10 users when right clicking on a pinned app on the taskbar, when instead of seeing the usual context-sensitive jump list menu – that allows access to common features, like opening recent files – they get something entirely useless.
What Windows 10 produces instead is the ‘Open with…’ menu (that facilitates choosing which app you want to open a file with). That’s not only unhelpful but also confusing, frankly, though Windows Latest, which spotted this, notes that the bug only affects a small set of Windows 10 users – and it only happens with some apps, not all of them.
So, this isn’t something you’re likely to encounter, but if you do, it’s a rather annoying issue. Furthermore, it affects a wide range of recent updates for Windows 10 – not just the latest June cumulative update, but also the May cumulative update (and that month’s optional update), and the optional update for April too.
Windows Latest reports that Microsoft has pinpointed a fix and the company has indicated that the resolution will be included in a future update for Window 10 22H2.
Analysis: A quick fix, with any luck
Hopefully, with the fix identified, implementing it shouldn’t be a difficult task and we might see the cure in next month’s cumulative update. Indeed, if that’s the case, we’ll actually get it before the July update, as it will be in the optional update for June, which is a preview of the former. That should be here in not much more than a week, in fact – though there’s no guarantee the fix won’t take longer, of course.
In case you missed it, what’s interesting with Windows 10 is that Microsoft is not just fixing and patching the OS, but is actively developing it again, adding new features and recently resurrecting the Beta channel to test them. That’s despite the End of Life date for Windows 10 coming ever closer – the OS runs out of support in October 2025, in case you’d forgotten. So it won’t be that long before you need to start exploring the options you have in that regard.