Microsoft Releases Emergency Updates After Broking Core Features

[harlan4096]

Microsoft has issued a series of emergency out-of-band updates to address serious problems introduced by the January 2026 Patch Tuesday updates. The affected patches caused shutdown and hibernation failures on some systems and disrupted access to remote desktop-based cloud services.

The issues surfaced shortly after Microsoft released cumulative updates on January 13, 2026. Users reported erratic behavior on both consumer and enterprise systems, prompting Microsoft to acknowledge the problems and publish fixes outside the normal update cadence.

One of the confirmed issues affects remote access to Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365. After installing the January updates, some systems were no longer able to establish remote desktop connections, preventing users from accessing cloud-hosted Windows environments.

A second issue impacts devices with Secure Launch enabled. On these systems, shutdown and hibernation no longer worked as expected. Instead of powering down, affected machines would restart repeatedly, making it difficult to fully shut down the system.

Due to the scope of the problems, Microsoft released multiple standalone updates rather than waiting for the next Patch Tuesday. The company published six separate out-of-band updates covering Windows 11 versions 23H2 through 25H2, Windows 10 version 22H2, and supported Windows Server releases from 2019 through 2025.

The emergency updates are currently available through the Microsoft Update Catalog. Microsoft has indicated that the fixes will be included in the regular February 2026 cumulative updates, reducing the need for separate installations later.

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