​Microsoft is investigating a new Windows 11 issue that causes the Task Manager to say there are zero running apps and background processes.

However, while the Task Manager doesn’t display the correct number of active processes, this is just a reporting issue: the app is otherwise fully functional and will show the list of running apps and processes.

As the company explained in a new Windows release health entry added on Wednesday, the problems are caused by KB5044384, this month’s preview update for Windows 11 24H2 systems.

“After installing the October 2024 non-security preview update (KB5044384), users will encounter an issue where the number of Apps, Background Processes, and Windows Processes in Task Manager display a count of zero, despite having active applications running,” Redmond said.

“Normally, Task Manager displays the count of processes next to each group name (e.g., Apps, Background processes), providing users with a quick view of active processes.”

However, on affected devices, the Task Manager will show zero processes and applications running on the system at any given time.

​The company says this known issue “appears” only to impact Windows systems where the “Group by Type” view is toggled on. Microsoft’s engineers are working on a fix that will be delivered with a future Windows update.

Redmond acknowledged the bug after customers reported experiencing issues over the past week, with the Task Manager saying there are no currently active applications.

Today, Microsoft fixed another, much more significant known issue that prevents some apps from working altogether after failing to start when launched from non-admin accounts on Windows 10 systems.

Microsoft fixed the app launch failures triggered after installing the September cumulative update using the Known Issue Rollback Windows feature.