Taskbar vanishes, File Explorer crashes, install fails

The February Patch Tuesday update delivered a three-course meal of misery. First course: your taskbar disappears, leaving a blank void where your app icons used to be. Second course: File Explorer crashes whenever it feels like it. Third course: the update itself fails to install at 96% with error 0x800F0922, because a hidden C:\$WinREAgent folder left behind by a previous botched update blocks installation. The fix was to manually delete a hidden system folder. Peak Windows.