Windows 11’s relationship with VPNs hasn’t been the best in recent weeks. As you may recall, we told you at the beginning of the month that updates released by Microsoft in April for its desktop operating system were causing significant outages in Internet connections via virtual private networks. The problem affected several versions of the operating system:

• Clients: Windows 11 22H2/23H2 (KB5036893); Windows 11 21H2 (KB5036894) and Windows 10 (KB5036892).
• Servers: Windows Server 2022 (KB5036909); Windows Server 2019 (KB5036896); Windows Server 2016 (KB5036899); Windows Server 2012 R2 (KB5036960); Windows Server 2012 (KB5036969); Windows Server 2008 R2 (KB5036967) and Windows Server 2008 (KB5036932).

The most remarkable thing is that in addition It wasn’t the first time, because exactly a year ago there was a similar problem with Windows 11 and VPN networks, in which case it was possible to establish a connection, but its quality was so low that its speed was reduced to a minimum and it could even end up automatically closing. In the current case, as happened last year, the only option that Microsoft initially offered was to roll back the installation of the updates responsible for the problem.

This, of course, adds one more point to the already very extensive list of precedents, according to which it is generally the rule, We never recommend installing newly released updates, with the added bonus that for some time now, these issues seem to also occur in security updates, the few we normally recommend installing quickly. Microsoft should definitely look into the problem they are having with Windows updates.

Fortunately, however, it seems that there is already a solution because, as we read in the update notes KB5037771, installing it will solve Windows 11 problems with VPN networks. The update is now available for all those users who were affected by the updates mentioned at the beginning, and can be found both via Windows Update and in the Microsoft update catalog.

I can’t help but wonder if this issue is somehow related to last year’s issue, but I also find it remarkable that with this precedent Microsoftwill not perform the necessary tests to verify that VPNs were not affected by last month’s update, a type of connection service that is crucial to many people’s daily lives due to a wide variety of circumstances. Let’s hope the second time’s the charm, though.