Microsoft has fixed a Windows 11 bug that was causing havoc for students across the globe.
The software giant confirmed that the problem – which meant that university Wi-Fi networks (and those at other educational establishments) failed to work for some students – was caused by patches KB5032288 and KB5033375.
The latter is the cumulative update for December in Windows 11, and the former is the preview version of that upgrade (unsurprisingly, as they are essentially the same thing).
The good news is that the solution came alongside the confirmation of the bug.
Microsoft got in touch with us directly to point out the fix, with the company also announcing on its release health status dashboard: “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.”
Analysis: A swiftly delivered save
It’s great to see Microsoft move quickly with the fix here, as this was a pretty nasty issue for those students affected. It seems that it was mainly universities, businesses, and public Wi-Fi networks where this gremlin struck, with Microsoft telling us that it’s “not likely to occur on home networks” (though that doesn’t rule out the possibility completely).
At any rate, you don’t have to do anything to cure these Wi-Fi blues. The Known Issue Rollback means that Microsoft is rolling back the problematic part of the update, while leaving the rest of it in place (to redeploy that faulty bit at a later date, when it’s fixed up and no longer causing Wi-Fi woes).
The catch is that the issue rollback takes a bit of time to filter through to everyone, up to 24 hours as noted. However, that announcement was made late in the day yesterday, and all affected users should have the fix in around the next five hours or so, all being well. If you’re getting impatient, as Microsoft advises, you can try a reboot to surface the fix.