Microsoft rushes out emergency updates to fix a broken Windows Patch Tuesday

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Editor's take: Microsoft's push to turn Windows into a showcase for generative AI and chatbots is colliding with a far more immediate concern: reliability. Over the past two years, users have been forced to wade through a steady stream of increasingly unstable Windows updates, raising uncomfortable questions about whether Microsoft's focus on AI is coming at the expense of the operating system millions still depend on every day.

Microsoft rolled out the latest cumulative updates for Windows on January 13, 2026. Soon after installing the patches, users began reporting erratic behavior on both home PCs and enterprise systems. To its credit, Redmond moved quickly, issuing several out-of-band (OOB) updates intended to fix problems introduced during this month's Patch Tuesday cycle.

Despite the millions of unpaid beta testers checking the latest code changes through the Windows Insider program, Windows reliability continues to be a contentious issue and an untangled mess of broken functionality. In January, Microsoft acknowledged two major new problems affecting an unknown number of users still clinging to its proprietary "agentic OS."

The first issue involves the inability to access Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 cloud services. After installing the January update, remote desktop connections began failing. The second problem affects devices protected by Secure Launch, a virtualization-based security feature designed to guard against firmware-level threats. On these systems, shutdown and hibernation stopped working properly, instead triggering repeated restarts.

Both issues are likely affecting a large number of users, prompting Microsoft to release stand-alone fixes rather than waiting for next month's Patch Tuesday. The company published six different OOB updates for supported versions of Windows 11 (23H2 through 25H2), Windows 10 (22H2), and Windows Server versions from 2019 through 2025. These updates are currently available as standalone downloads via the Microsoft Update Catalog, but they are expected to be folded into the February 2026 update cycle.

A broken cloud connection or a system that refuses to shut down would be frustrating enough on its own, but the problems with January's Patch Tuesday didn't end there. Users have also reported additional issues, including Outlook failing to launch, black screens, and other reliability glitches.

The sad state of Windows development continues to fuel debate, with a growing minority of PC users openly frustrated by how Microsoft now treats its flagship operating system.

The company recently predicted that AI models will soon generate most software code, with CEO Satya Nadella claiming that up to 30% of Microsoft's own projects are now "vibe coded" using AI.

In response, some angry users have adopted the nickname "Microslop," but Nadella would very much like you stop using the slop word to fully embrace the hallucinated AI paradigm.

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Microsoft rushes out emergency updates to fix a broken Windows Patch Tuesday

 

[OortCloud]

Windows 11 is an ungodly mess. The technical debt in the OS is so off the charts now they can barely maintain it, yet alone add new components. The once awesome NT Kernel is creaking under a mountain of services and technologies roughly patched on top of it like Libraries, BitLocker, ReFS, OneDrive, DevDrive etc etc. 6 months from now we will have yet another layer of 'agentic workspaces' slapped onto the outside of the onion further obfuscating the underlying structures and making fixes more and more difficult to get right and test under all the different scenarios. It needs a rewrite/clean sheet but that will never happen now, there is so much in a modern OS that throwing it all away and starting again just isn't possible and the short term thinking of the modern CFO isn't going to get excited about technical debt. They just want a new buzzword like AI to push the stock up in the short term so they get their bonus and move on to their next organisation.

 

[Alfonso Maruccia]

*

 

[Burty117]

Honestly don’t mind Microsoft *ucking up Windows, the more they do it, the more of a need for some competition will arise.

They still have a long way to go annoying people before there’s a tipping point, but it’ll happen eventually.

Either that or Trump annoys the rest of the world enough nobody can even do business with Microsoft anymore so alternatives become the default. I’d like to think this is even more far-fetched than above but you never know.

 

[yRaz]

Windows 11 is an ungodly mess. The technical debt in the OS is so off the charts now they can barely maintain it, yet alone add new components. The once awesome NT Kernel is creaking under a mountain of services and technologies roughly patched on top of it like Libraries, BitLocker, ReFS, OneDrive, DevDrive etc etc. 6 months from now we will have yet another layer of 'agentic workspaces' slapped onto the outside of the onion further obfuscating the underlying structures and making fixes more and more difficult to get right and test under all the different scenarios. It needs a rewrite/clean sheet but that will never happen now, there is so much in a modern OS that throwing it all away and starting again just isn't possible and the short term thinking of the modern CFO isn't going to get excited about technical debt. They just want a new buzzword like AI to push the stock up in the short term so they get their bonus and move on to their next organisation.

you touched on a really interesting point. It's not so much that windows is "just bad". It's that they keep plugging features into it that it was never designed to handle and all the patches they keep implementing to essentially force things to work breaks everything else. It takes years of planning and development to make an OS with the features they envision. Modern windows doesn't have any "Vision" to it, it's whatever the flavor of the week is

 

[kingmustard]

Late to the game, TechSpot.

 

[seeprime]

you touched on a really interesting point. It's not so much that windows is "just bad". It's that they keep plugging features into it that it was never designed to handle and all the patches they keep implementing to essentially force things to work breaks everything else. It takes years of planning and development to make an OS with the features they envision. Modern windows doesn't have any "Vision" to it, it's whatever the flavor of the week is

But, Microsoft Copilot vibe coding is ....

 

[hahahanoobs]

These MS update articles are definitely for 6-7 kids.

 

[daffy duck]

Honestly don’t mind Microsoft *ucking up Windows, the more they do it, the more of a need for some competition will arise.

They still have a long way to go annoying people before there’s a tipping point, but it’ll happen eventually.

Either that or Trump annoys the rest of the world enough nobody can even do business with Microsoft anymore so alternatives become the default. I’d like to think this is even more far-fetched than above but you never know.

Really, you have two choices in reality, Linux or MacOS. No one else will build a new OS for x86. I don't want a bar iof Apple's closed ecosystem, where I can build by own PC and a lot of the softwre I need does noot come in native Linux versions and I'm not dual booting or running virtualisation.

I have delayed by a year having to move off Windows 10, but it will miss out on many nrew features going forward, dfeliberately of course, to force you to downgrade to Windows 11.

 

[Watzupken]

This is not a recent problem as we have seen this issue for at least a few years now. Hence, it is not a problem that Microsoft is not aware of. It just points to the fact that they don't care because they know most people are not going to move away from Windows. The likes of Linux will start to chip away at Microsoft's market share, but I doubt it's going to make a big dent since most people are used to Windows and will put up with all of Microsoft's slop.

 

[NumberNine]

Windows 10 LTSB IoT has nine years of support remaining and is a superior operating system.

 

[Athlonite69]

Well can't say I have any of those problems with that update but then I uninstalled Copilot and it's associated AI bollocks when Microslop first tried to install it

 

[Anton Longshot]

Come on nay-sayers. once MS gets the new Windows to work as intended you'll all be eternally grateful.
OK except for the ad flood. And the cranky AI BS. Probably other stuff too but that will be minor, lots of it.

Enough jokes for now. I'm holding on to W10 (bearable but I must admit I'm a very longtime Windows user and have some wintweak skill) but MacOS will very likely happen to me before the year is over.

 

[texasrattler]

Another update and still no issues. Sucks that people get these issues but I dont see them. I only use my PC for gaming.

Using Windows 11 Pro.

 

[abactuon]

When installing Windows, select a European country (for example, Ireland).
Uninstall all Microsoft programs.
Set the update delay to a couple of years.
Of course, all this is for a home computer, I don’t know anything about Azure, etc.

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

I have delayed by a year having to move off Windows 10, but it will miss out on many nrew features going forward, dfeliberately of course, to force you to downgrade to Windows 11.

How could I live without 3 new Barbed Bride emojis every 3 months?

Come on nay-sayers. once MS gets the new Windows to work as intended you'll all be .... eternally grateful.

Or long time dead. Unless turn immortal.

 

[Vanderlinde]

It reminds me of using AI to either generate or expand existing code. Like if you don't test the output, validate things, 99% you will run into a situation where it did fix one thing, but burked other things on the other side.

This is what I think is happening the last couple of years. I have disabled updates for a long time. I do that for a reason and no I have not caught anything. My OS and setup is pretty much isolated while working with web for years.

I bet they outsource a large portion to cheap countries like India. There's no other reason to it on why the quality of microsoft has dropped so much in the last years. They are more concerned about selling you their office products rather then delivering a stable OS to begin with.

Microsoft used to test updates; usually had a place with over 150 configurations but now your a public beta tester.

When 10 ends I'm moving over to Linux. There's nothing I can't do by now on Linux that I would need windows for. Times are changing.

 

[GeoffreyA]

Windows 11 is an ungodly mess. The technical debt in the OS is so off the charts now they can barely maintain it, yet alone add new components. The once awesome NT Kernel is creaking under a mountain of services and technologies roughly patched on top of it like Libraries, BitLocker, ReFS, OneDrive, DevDrive etc etc. 6 months from now we will have yet another layer of 'agentic workspaces' slapped onto the outside of the onion further obfuscating the underlying structures and making fixes more and more difficult to get right and test under all the different scenarios. It needs a rewrite/clean sheet but that will never happen now, there is so much in a modern OS that throwing it all away and starting again just isn't possible and the short term thinking of the modern CFO isn't going to get excited about technical debt. They just want a new buzzword like AI to push the stock up in the short term so they get their bonus and move on to their next organisation.

The thing is, it can be fixed, and something similar happened during Vista's development. Instead of restarting from scratch, reset the codebase to the last reliable version, Windows 10, then with a strict protocol in place and eschewing feature creep, import code from 11. This would take time but not that long, and the quality of Windows would be secured, as long as strictness is maintained. Just like the recovering addict. As for the GUI, they could hire programmers that know old-school Win32 and get rid of all that XAML nonsense. Of course, this is pure dreaming, and will not happen at Redmond under the current state of affairs. The one, slender hope is that if the Windows codebase were open sourced, the community could get it back to polish in time. Microsoft would still benefit, and so would everyone.

 

[Rapob]

Honestly don’t mind Microsoft *ucking up Windows, the more they do it, the more of a need for some competition will arise.

They still have a long way to go annoying people before there’s a tipping point, but it’ll happen eventually.

Either that or Trump annoys the rest of the world enough nobody can even do business with Microsoft anymore so alternatives become the default. I’d like to think this is even more far-fetched than above but you never know.

Competition from who, Linux? Too fragmented to matter for consumers and especially gamers. Pretty much no game developers care about a 1% marketshare. Neither does AMD, Intel or Nvidia, as they have 99% focus on Windows.

The few percent on Steam HW Survey which use Linux, is mostly because of Steam Deck, which is mostly used for playing old games, indies etc. Mainly works for single player games. Slow as dirt for new AAA multiplayer games and most of them won't even run due to anti cheat anyway.

MacOS is a bigger threat to Windows and gets way more support from actual developers but will mostly run on Apple devices unless you tinker so don't really matter much.

Microsoft is buying up game studios left and right to keep people on Windows going forward. Linux is only an alternative for casual gamers, mostly playing old games or single player only.

Building a beefy gaming rig, just to install Linux, then you might as well shoot yourself in the foot too. Simply not an option unless you want to be sevely limited by the the gaming catalog and accept wonky games, audio issues, crashes and degraded performance.

Most of the people claiming Linux is good for gaming, uses dated and weak hardware, while playing old games with 30 fps thinking it is smooth as butter, while cherrypicking games that actually run without much issues. Still most of them, run better in Windows.

Demanding games knows better, you know, people aiming for 100s of fps with decent 1% lows, which is why pretty much no-one with beefy hardware is using Linux for gaming.

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

Competition from who, Linux?

When old & wise man says that something is possible. He usually is right.
When old & wise man says that something is not possible. He usually is worn.
Fortunately there are those young, dumb people who were not told some things are not possible and do them.

 

[TheBigT42]

How is this even new anymore?

 

[toooooot]

I think I got it, my PC was stuck after update all night. Last time this happened, I had to fix boot. My heart froze when I saw the same error message. Luckily, this time it could undo the update and restart.

 

[jeffbert]

Glad I still use 10!

 

[Hellbishop]

Another update and still no issues. Sucks that people get these issues but I dont see them. I only use my PC for gaming.

Using Windows 11 Pro.

Same here, gaming and internet use for news, Netflix (hopefully with Warner Brothers in the future if the merger comes thru), Youtube videos. I have been using Windows since 1994 and in all that time I can only vaguely remember one time I had an issue which was easily fixed by reverting to the previous build which is one of the safety features of Windows.

 

[ZedRM]

Patches for patches for patches....

Microsoft is a bunch of incompetent fools.

Evidence you say?

Satya Nadella warns AI must go mainstream to avoid becoming a bubble

While remaining an enthusiastic proponent of AI, Satya Nadella now warns that the technology could eventually face the consequences of a massively speculative bubble. The Microsoft CEO...

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