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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The brand new 12 months has introduced new bugs to Home windows.
- Lots of the newest bugs had been attributable to the January replace.
- Some bugs have been fastened, however others stay unresolved.
A brand new 12 months, a brand new spherical of bugs to frustrate Home windows customers. The key perpetrator up to now? Microsoft’s personal January Patch Tuesday replace.
Launched on Jan. 13, the primary main Home windows replace of the 12 months had a transparent mission — to resolve the 114 safety vulnerabilities placing Home windows customers in danger. A number of of those had been rated crucial, whereas one had already been exploited within the wild. Plus, the January replace fastened a couple of excellent points in Home windows itself.
Additionally: Microsoft points second emergency patch for Home windows this month – replace your PC as we speak
OK, that is the excellent news. Now for the dangerous. This new replace has additionally triggered a number of bugs of its personal. Some have been resolved, however others proceed on their merry approach. Let’s have a look.
Distant Desktop bug
In a single glitch, some individuals ran into sign-in issues making an attempt to remotely connect with a Cloud PC through Microsoft’s Distant Desktop. Particularly, the difficulty affected the authentication required for numerous Distant Desktop apps, together with the Home windows app. This one affected Home windows 11 25H2, Home windows 10 22H2 ESU, and Home windows Server 2025.
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To resolve this bug, Microsoft rolled out an out-of-band patch on Jan. 17. That patch will seem in Home windows Replace, however provided that your model of Home windows qualifies and is affected by the particular challenge.
Safe Launch bug
In one other glitch, some programs with Safe Launch enabled would restart as an alternative of shutting down or going into hibernation mode. Much like Safe Boot, Safe Launch protects your PC from bootkit malware that tries to contaminate your system earlier than Home windows hundreds. However whereas Safe Boot is meant for private and work computer systems, Safe Launch is designed for managed PCs in a corporation. This one impacted solely Home windows 11 23H2.
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The Jan. 17 patch additionally squashed this bug. Once more, the repair will seem in Home windows Replace provided that your Home windows model qualifies and your pc is affected.
Basic Outlook freeze
Additionally attributable to the Jan. 13 replace, the third bug clobbers the traditional taste of Microsoft Outlook. Making an attempt to open Outlook triggers a “Not Responding” message. You’ll be able to’t even try and open or reopen Outlook with out ending its course of in Activity Supervisor or restarting the PC. If you may get into this system, emails do not seem within the Despatched Objects folder despite the fact that they have been despatched. Plus, Outlook retains redownloading the identical emails.
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This bug appears to have an effect on Outlook customers with PST recordsdata saved on OneDrive. The difficulty additionally impacts all kinds of Home windows variations, together with Home windows 11 25H2, Home windows 11 24H2, Home windows 11 23H2, Home windows 10 22H2, Home windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021, Home windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019, Home windows Server 2025, Home windows Server 23H2, Home windows Server 2022, and Home windows Server 2019.
Initially, Microsoft had no repair for this one however did recommend a couple of momentary workarounds, equivalent to utilizing the online model of Outlook as an alternative of the desktop consumer or transferring your PSTs out of OneDrive and saving them in a unique spot. However there’s now no want for these maneuvers, as the corporate has rolled out a repair by way of a second emergency patch for January. Putting in KB5078127 for Home windows 11 25H2 and 24H2 or KB5073455 for Home windows 11 23H2 resolves this downside.
Apps cannot deal with knowledge within the cloud
Here is one other bug associated to the Outlook glitch. Additionally triggered by the Jan. 13 replace, this challenge could trigger some apps to freeze or set off an error once you attempt to open recordsdata from or save them to cloud-based storage equivalent to OneDrive or Dropbox. This one impacts the identical variations of Home windows because the Outlook downside. Once more, putting in KB5078127 for Home windows 11 25H2 and 24H2 or KB5073455 for Home windows 11 23H2 fixes this one.
Home windows 11 bootup glitch
One other bug attributable to the January replace, this one has been stopping a restricted variety of Home windows computer systems from booting up. Impacting Home windows 11 25H2 and 24H2, the bug triggers a black display screen upon bootup and shows a cease code pointing to an unmountable boot quantity. In the event you’re affected, you will not be capable to launch Home windows and should have to make use of Home windows Restoration to revive your atmosphere. Microsoft mentioned that it’s investigating the issue however has no repair at this level.
Home windows apps will not open
Here is one other inconsistent however annoying bug, as described by Sean Endicott at Home windows Central. Attempt to open sure apps, together with Notepad, the Snipping Instrument, the Armoury Crate software program on ASUS computer systems, or the Alienware Command Heart, and you could obtain an error code dubbed 0x803f8001.
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Primarily based on a response from an unbiased advisor named Harold Milan to a discussion board put up from an affected person, this error usually pops up when the Microsoft Retailer cannot validate a license. This may very well be as a consequence of a corrupted Retailer cache, a short lived Microsoft account sync challenge, or a Retailer registration glitch, Milan defined.
Microsoft hasn’t chimed in on this downside. However Home windows Central senior editor Ben Wilson mentioned that the Jan. 13 patch truly fastened this on his Home windows 11 pc, permitting him to launch his apps usually.
The highway forward
Home windows 11 has confronted a tough highway, particularly with the discharge of 24H2 in October 2024. All through the primary half of 2025, Microsoft and Home windows customers needed to grapple with a bunch of bugs, nearly one after the opposite. Even worse, most of the glitches had been attributable to Microsoft’s personal Home windows updates. By making an attempt to repair one set of bugs, these updates created new ones.
Additionally: How you can improve your ‘incompatible’ Home windows 10 PC to Home windows 11 – without cost
With the discharge of 25H2 in October 2025, Microsoft appeared to have fastened a lot of the excellent points. That was particularly vital, as that month marked the official finish of assist for Home windows 10. With just one supported consumer model of Home windows, the onus has been on the corporate to verify the OS is as secure and dependable as attainable. However clearly that is not taking place, not when common Home windows updates which might be supposed to repair issues find yourself inflicting new ones.
