Snipping Tool not working in Windows 11? An expired certificate is to blame

If you’ve been noticing strange issues with some of Windows 11’s built-in apps and tools since the calendar rolled over to November, you’re not alone. In a post on Microsoft’s Known Issues page for Windows 11, the company says that an expired digital certificate is rendering some users “unable to open or use certain built-in Windows apps or parts of some built-in apps.”

Affected apps include the Snipping Tool, the Accounts page of the Settings app (but only when running Windows in S mode), the Touch Keyboard, Voice Typing, the Emoji picker, the Input Method Editor, and the Tips app. There’s no indication that Windows 10’s versions of any of these apps have been affected.

For everything but the Snipping Tool and the S mode Settings app, an update to fix the problems is already available—it’s the same 22000.282 build that addressed some of Windows 11’s AMD Ryzen performance issues. Check Windows Update and install that patch to fix those issues. Fixes for the other problems are still in progress.

Not all Windows 11 users may be affected by these issues; on a fully updated Dell XPS 13 running Windows 11 with all updates installed, the Snipping Tool app opens and works just fine. But if you’re having problems, an update should be coming soon.