Softpedia points to a Microsoft Community forum post revealing that many users are experiencing system lockups, or freezing, after installing the Windows 8.1 update, which went live on October 17. The affected users have no options other than powering off or rebooting their desktop or laptops.
"I've had Windows 8.1 installed for about a month and it's been working fine. Ever since a day or two ago though, it's been freezing when left idle for a while," reads one post. "The mouse can move but nothing responds to anything. This problem seems to me to have started after installing updates KB2884848, KB2883200, and KB2895219, although I can't be sure of this."
"When the freeze occurs for me that my mouse is responsive as normal and I can move it around the screen but my keyboard stop responding," reads another complaint. "I can click with the mouse but it doesn't do anything. The system doesn't automatically restart, I have to force a power-down or restart by physically hitting the button on my case. No errors seem to show upon restart either."
Both of these reveal that the system isn't completely frozen, that it's accepting mouse input. That leads to another thread with a Microsoft support engineer who believes that users can launch the built-in troubleshooter in the Settings category to detect and fix most of the incorrect settings and performance related errors. To get there, do the following:
a) Press Windows key +F to bring up the search Charms bar.
b) Select "Settings" in the drop down menu below search and type "Troubleshooting."
c) Click on "Troubleshooting" and select the view all option on the left pane.
d) Click on "Performance troubleshooter" and follow the prompts.
If the Troubleshoot app doesn't solve the problem, then customers are suggested to check the event viewer for any error logs around the time the computer froze recently. To get this information, do the following:
a) Go to the Start Screen, type in "Event Viewer." This will bring up the Event Viewer tile; Click to open the event viewer.
b) In the left pane, expand out Windows Logs. Click on Application log, highlight the first event in the log, and use your arrow keys to scroll down.
c) Most of your event will be Information. You may see Yellow Warnings or Red Errors. If you see any red error, you can double click on it to bring it up and copy the contents in your reply.
As Softpedia points out, the "locking up" issue with Windows 8.1 could possibly stem from incompatible drivers. Then again, users are experiencing other issues as well, including mouse lag in PC games, that previously weren't present. Given the update has only been out for several weeks, the new build will undoubtedly produce a number of unfortunate, unforeseen bugs that will need to be ironed out.
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