The KB5033375 cumulative update released during the December 2023 Patch Tuesday causes Wi-Fi connectivity issues on some Windows 11 devices.
Besides a massive stream of user reports on Reddit, Twitter, and Microsoft's own community platform, several universities have also issued advisories recommending students to uninstall the KB5033375 update (and the optional cumulative update preview KB50532288, if installed).
For instance, a University of British Columbia incident report says, "This issue affects enterprise wireless networks (ubcsecure, ubcprivate, eduroam), but does not affect home wireless/internet usage."
Based on customer reports, this issue impacts enterprise wireless networks with fast-transition/fast-roaming enabled to facilitate seamless device movement between wireless access points.
Home users who have installed KB5033375 or KB50532288 are yet to report experiencing Wi-Fi connectivity problems.
The impact seems confined to Windows 11 operating systems, specifically those operating on version 22H2 or 23H2 feature releases. Windows 10 systems don't seem to be affected by this particular issue.
Currently, there's no information on whether these wireless connectivity problems extend to specific models of wireless network adapters.
Temporary workaround available
As a temporary solution, users affected by this issue are advised to uninstall the KB5033375 Windows 11 December cumulative update and the related KB50532288 optional preview update (which might not have been installed on all impacted systems).
To uninstall the buggy update, you need to go through the following steps:
- Open the Windows start menu, search for "Windows Update," then go to Update history > Uninstall updates
- On the list of installed updates, select KB5033375 (or KB50532288), and then click the Uninstall button next to it.
- After the update is uninstalled, restart the computer.
Once uninstalled, you should also use the 'Show or Hide Updates' troubleshooter to hide the update so Windows Update will no longer show it in the list of available updates.
A Microsoft spokesperson was not immediately available for comment when contacted by BleepingComputer earlier today.
Comments
TanyaC - 2 months ago
God, the only thing Microsoft are good at is breaking stuff. Thankfully I've avoided all the hype and kept my systems as far away from W11 as possible. Phew!
Lefty4444 - 2 months ago
Yes, they only good at breaking things. It is indeed one of the universes big mystery how they can even stay in business, let alone make money. Cause god knows that Linux, Mac, iOS or Android have never received a bad update that might break something in the million lines of code and numerous dependencies.
Hmm888 - 2 months ago
@Lefty4444 -
I see you got some help from chatgpt with writing your nonsense.
Astronomical - 2 months ago
FYI
Microsoft received reports about issues connecting to Wi-Fi networks
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/status-windows-11-23h2#microsoft-received-reports-about-issues-connecting-to-wi-fi-networks
"Resolution: This issue is resolved using Known Issue Rollback (KIR). Please note that it might take up to 24 hours for the resolution to propagate automatically to consumer devices and non-managed business devices. Restarting your Windows device might help the resolution apply to your device faster. For enterprise-managed devices that have installed an affected update and encountered this issue, it can be resolved by installing and configuring a special Group Policy. The special Group Policy can be found in Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> <Group Policy name listed below>
For information on deploying and configuring these special Group Policy, please see How to use Group Policy to deploy a Known Issue Rollback.
Group Policy downloads with Group Policy name:
Download for Windows 11, versions 23H2 and 22H2 - Windows 11 22H2 KB5032288 231029_032011 Known Issue Rollback
Important: You will need to install and configure the Group Policy for your version of Windows to resolve this issue. You will also need to restart your device(s) to apply the group policy setting."
via https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/closing-the-year-on-patching/#post-2613379
HTH.
Hmm888 - 2 months ago
Askwoody is still around? Anyways, we don't need workarounds or band aid solutions, we need a major enema at Microsoft. This all is becoming worse than ridiculous. It's enough to make consumers want to switch to Apple PCs. Besides. Windows Home users can't install Group Policy Editor.
Hmm888 - 2 months ago
I stopped updating W11 earlier in 2023 for this very reason. MS's cheerleaders and defenders like with White OJ can never fault MS for anything which is so unhinged.