Microsoft swiftly fixes a Wi-Fi bug that caused havoc for some Windows 11 users
Microsoft has fixed a Windows 11 bug that was devastating students around the world.
The software giant confirmed that the issue – which caused university Wi-Fi networks (and those of other educational institutions) to stop working for some students – was caused by patches KB5032288 and KB5033375.
The latter is the December cumulative update in Windows 11, and the former is the preview version of that upgrade (not surprising, since they are essentially the same).
The good news is that the fix came with confirmation of the bug.
Microsoft has contacted us directly to alert us to the fix, also with the company to announce on the release health status dashboard: “This issue was resolved using Known Issue Rollback (KIR). Please note that it may take up to 24 hours for the resolution to be automatically propagated to consumer devices and unmanaged business devices. Restarting your Windows device may allow the resolution to be applied to your device more quickly.'
Analysis: A quickly delivered rescue
It's great to see Microsoft moving quickly with the fix as this was quite an annoying issue for affected students. It seems that it was mainly universities, businesses and public Wi-Fi networks where this gremlin struck, with Microsoft telling us that this is “unlikely to happen on home networks” (although that doesn't completely rule out the possibility).
In any case, you don't have to do anything to cure these WiFi blues. Rolling back the known issue means that Microsoft rolls back the problematic part of the update, while leaving the rest in place (only to redeploy that broken part at a later date, when it's fixed and no longer causing Wi-Fi issues).
The problem is that reversing the issue takes some time to filter down to everyone, up to 24 hours as stated. However, that announcement was made late in the day yesterday and all affected users should have the fix in about five hours, if all goes well. If you get impatient, as Microsoft advises, you can try a restart to reveal the fix.