Microsoft ends the Windows 11 game crashes by switching off one driver

Last week the only cure for the Windows 11 game crashes was a trip into the registry. That's over. Microsoft marked the issue resolved late on 26 August and is now pushing the fix out to ordinary PCs on its own.

A short recap of a strange bug. Games including ARC Raiders, MARVEL Tokon: Fighting Souls and THE FINALS were freezing, closing without warning, throwing EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION errors, or restarting the whole machine mid-match. The culprit was a driver called inpoutx64, which comes bundled with the lighting software for RGB keyboards, mice, fans and cases. Microsoft's position throughout has been that its August update, KB5121003, didn't cause this, and the fix reflects that: instead of changing Windows, it simply stops inpoutx64 from loading. You get a small window telling you the driver has been disabled, and then the game launches as normal.

Two details matter if you're still crashing tonight. The block is currently aimed at PCs that have that driver enabled and ARC Raiders installed; Microsoft says it's working to extend it to MARVEL Tokon, while THE FINALS was fixed at the game's end by Embark Studios. And the rollout began at 6 PM Pacific on 26 August and can take a full 24 hours to reach every affected machine, with a restart required once it lands. If you already applied the registry workaround, Microsoft says it's safe to leave it in place alongside the official block.

Microsoft's investigation says disabling the driver causes no other problems, which is a mildly optimistic way of saying your lighting control panel probably won't notice, and if it does, a newer version from the manufacturer is the answer. That's the real lesson of the whole episode: a driver installed years ago by a keyboard can take down a game in 2026. Tendvane's driver Auto-Update finds the outdated ones, and its driver backup saves a copy of what currently works before anything gets replaced.