2011 MacBook Pro-Specific Boot Camp 3.2 update appears to lead to brightness issues

Here’s the thing with updates: they’re great and generally resolve problems and turn a disaster around.

Then there’s the other 10% for whom they make the sky fill with brimstone, the seas boil over and cause your cat to start waltzing across the living room floor with your terrier.

Per AppleInsider, Apple’s small Boot Camp update for the new 2011 Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook Pro models appears to be causing problems with adjusting screen brightness for some users.

While Apple said the update addresses issues that existed with system shutdowns and resolves problems with Japanese and korean keyboard, users on the official Apple Discussions page have reported that new issues were created with the update. Specifically, numerous Boot Camp users have reported since Thursday that the 3.2 update mistakenly disables the ability to control screen brightness in Windows.

“Clicking the brightness buttons (fn + F1) causes the little brightness icon to come up and move up or down, but the actual screen brightness won’t change and stays at 100%,” user pwhe23 wrote. “I don’t remember this happening before I upgraded.”

A number of other users chimed in on the thread, reporting similar results, even with a fresh install of Windows 7. User ckahn said they managed to address the problem by installing the 32-bit version of Windows 7, rather than the 64-bit operating system.

And user Polytonic found a “temporary workaround” by setting the brightness in Mac OS X, then rebooting to Windows. The Mac will apparently remember the brightness setting applied in Mac OS X and it will carry over to Windows upon the system reboot.

If you’ve seen this issue on your end, please let us know.