Fix: Search bar UI broken after installing KB5003214

If you have installed KB5003214 released on May 25, 2021 and found your search bar UI broken, this article is for you. After installing the KB5003214 (optional patch) on Windows 10 Version 2004 or later, some users are reporting various issues pointing towards broken taskbar elements. In this article, we will see what could cause these problems and how you can fix them at once.

So Microsoft released KB5003214 as an optional update previous week. This update brings the News and Interests feature to everyone. Since this is an optional update, it won’t be installed unless you opt for it. But some users after installing the update, reported that their taskbar UI is broken.

For example, a user reported that his search bar UI is broken after the update. You can see this in the below screenshot. Half part of the search bar is light, while rest is dark. User was using light theme when this screenshot was taken. When the user switched to dark mode, this search box was showing dark color as expected. But the user didn’t want to use dark theme.

Fix Search bar UI broken after installing KB5003214

Some other users reported that the system tray on taskbar is broken. If you’re also facing similar problems after installing KB5003214, here’s how you can fix it.

Fix: Search bar UI broken after installing KB5003214

You can try below workarounds on your system:

You can switch to dark theme, if you’re using light theme.
Try enabling News and Interests on your taskbar using this guide. If News and Interests is already enabled and you’re facing this problem then, try disabling the feature instead.
Since KB5003214 is an optional update, you can uninstall it using this guide. After your uninstall the update, you can wait and install the next security update when it is available.
If your DPI scaling level is more than 100%, this issue might occur. Try setting the display scaling to 100% and see if it helps.
After trying above steps, submit your feedback to Feedback hub so this can be fixed in next update.

Hope this helps!