One Patch Tuesday, every VPN connection gone
January 2022 cumulative updates broke L2TP/IPsec VPN connections
The market's verdict: -3.7% on MSFT in the week after.
What actually happened
The January 11, 2022 updates broke L2TP/IPsec VPN connections on Windows 10, Windows 11 and Windows Server. Connections hung at "connecting" or failed without saying why, which in the remote work era meant whole offices dead in the water. Microsoft admitted it and shipped the fix with February's updates. Until then, the workaround was to uninstall January's patch.
This one is officially acknowledged.
Were you affected? Unbreak it
Uninstall the January 2022 update ↗
wusa /uninstall /kb:5009543 /quiet /norestart
Or wait. Fixed in the February 2022 updates ↗
Microsoft has acknowledged this issue; a fix ships in an out-of-band or next cumulative update. Check Windows Release Health before manual workarounds.
Links
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Context
- Wikipedia (wikipedia)
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Acknowledgement
- Microsoft Support (official)
↳ caused by KB5009543 (and January 2022 siblings)
Timeline
- Jan 11, 2022 Confirmed First reports came in.
- Feb 8, 2022 Fixed Fixed in the February updates.