Microsoft's 'atypical' emergency Windows patches are becoming awfully typical

Microsoft has had a bad start to the year. Two out-of-band updates in the weeks after the first Patch Tuesday of 2026 rattled administrators' already shaky faith in the company. But are things getting worse? According to Register readers, and the company's own release health dashboard, the answer has to be yes. It isn't just …

[Pascal Monett]

" the [..] administrators' already shaky faith in the company"

It's funny (not really) how Microsoft has an iron grip on anyone who doesn't actually have to face its failures on a daily basis.

Windows really is good enough for home users - they're basically incompetent and only surf the web, read/write mails and maybe watch films. That's fine.

For business users, you've got three types : the grunts, the managers and the IT guys.

The grunts don't care, if there is an issue, they call IT and go get a coffee until it's fixed.

The managers don't care, they just shout into the phone and complain unitl it's fixed.

The IT guys bear the brunt of Redmond's incompetence. They sweat and swear and fix things as best as possible, but until the beancounters start tallying the costs of Borkzilla's failures, management won't care and won't change.

[ComputerSays_noAbsolutelyNo]

Re: " the [..] administrators' already shaky faith in the company"

... and on their personal devices, the IT guys run anything but Windows. Because they know the quality of micros~1's warez.

[breakfast]

Re: " the [..] administrators' already shaky faith in the company"

One of the biggest changes as an IT guy over the last few years has been WSL allowing me to have Windows in theory, Linux in practice for a lot of work. That does make a lot of thigns easier and more pleasant.

[druck]

Re: " the [..] administrators' already shaky faith in the company"

WSL - some of the niceties of Linux, but still with all the pain of maintaining Windows.

[QET]

WSL allowing me to have Windows in theory, Linux in practice

For all intents and purposes, that sounds like having a Windows VM and a up-to-date WINE installation on a computer running Linux.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: " the [..] administrators' already shaky faith in the company"

> Windows really is good enough for home users - they're basically incompetent and only surf the web, read/write mails and maybe watch films.

Home users may be unsophisticated and "only surf the web..."; that does not make them incompetent: they can be entirely competent at the range of tasks that are of interest to them.

Not unless they also *claim* to, say, be able to write a secure OS and then prove incompetent at that task.

To say otherwise risks having oneself declared "incompetent" for not being able to perform computer-related tasks, such as tuning a dynamic simulation of a stellar processes to run efficiently on a thousand-core compute server in order to get rid of that annoyingly high L2 cache miss rate that is slowing it down.

OTOH you can call someone "incompetent" if they claim to have made a patch to a product that then has to be OOB patched because it broke something and that breakage could have been caught before the first patch was released to the public.

[David Hicklin]

Re: " the [..] administrators' already shaky faith in the company"

> Home users may be unsophisticated and "only surf the web..."; that does not make them incompetent: they can be entirely competent at the range of tasks that are of interest to them.

I think the intended interpretation of that statement is that they are good enough to drive a browser and other installed software on their machines , but if something breaks that needs some "under the hood" fixing then they are just as lost as many modern car drivers are today.

[Blue Screen of Bleurgh]

Re: " the [..] administrators' already shaky faith in the company"

And inevitably, the grunts and management will nag at IT Support with the standard "How much longer?" or "This project is urgent: it has to go out by close of play today! Get it fixed!"

It's as if they think IT guys have absolutely no idea how a business works, and making constant phone calls to the helpdesk only delays the guys on the coalface from fixing the "urgent" problem!

[Joe W]

Re: " the [..] administrators' already shaky faith in the company"

And then there's people like me: I am more IT savy than I guess 80% of my colleagues (the rest are hard core devs or real sysadmins, I bow to them, not being worthy to carry their coffee), but at work I am a grunt stuck with whatever the company decides to buy[1]. I'm ok with that, and in fact I'm happy the guys and gals "over there" *gestures in the general direction* do pretty good work. Helpful bunch, and understanding of user shortcomings, patient like saints (and I don't mean Bonifatius). And I mean both our Helldesk and the groups doing sysadmin, DB admin, backups, monitoring. and all the things we take for granted.

So: yes, I'm a grunt (and happy) but I understand what the IT folx are going through (and I'm glad I don't have to do that).

[1] well, I have my own Linux machines I have to take care of for the more pleasant tasks, like doing real data analysis

[JimmyPage]

And ?

If this is a problem for people then they should use something else to run their kit. I mean it's not like it's 2000 when MS were still growing.

If you use MS then this is your life from now on.

I am getting a a little narked that this is being treated as news rather than business as usual. I mean do I open my copy of "The Times" to read about it being hot in Africa and cold in Antarctica ?

If El Reg is going to report on these expected fails, then it would be interesting to see how many man-decades it costs industry. I mean forget Trumps tariffs, MS could wipe 10% off your turnover in one day.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: And ?

"If you use MS then this is your life from now on."

That line is worth a thousand upvotes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: And ?

> I am getting a a little narked that this is being treated as news rather than business as usual

Because there are many people in this world who haven't reached our levels of enlightenment and still need to be beaten around head with the bleedin' obvious.

Not that TFA even attempts to claim that OOB is "news", from the title onwards. Instead, they have provide you - us - with an article to print out and apply kinetically.

[Zack Mollusc]

Re: And ?

Ok then, smartass, anwer me this:

if I don't use Microsoft products to run my company, HOW WILL I PAY TENS MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO MICROSOFT EVERY YEAR?

No Microsoft contract means no payments to Microsoft. Did you even go to business school?

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: And ?

Technically, which we all know is the best kind of correct, Trump tariffs will increase your turnover.

They'll probably lower your profits.

[lglethal]

Wouldnt it be intereting if some massive American corporation brought a suit against Microsoft for lost manhours over the OOB updates? If one firm did it, it would open massive flood gates against Microsoft. Maybe even just the hint of such an event would send Microsoft running to re-hire all those engineers.

Of course it has to be an American firm, because well foreigners cant be allowed to attack 'Mercian firms.

*sigh* It will never happen. If a firm even began to have an idea and made the threat in private, Microsoft would pay them off, and make them sign an NDA not to disclose the idea to anyone else. And we will all continue to suffer as a result...

[HeadPlug]

I'm assuming they'd be more than covered by various EULAs and SLAs that their customers have signed. CrowdStrike caused *B*illions of damage, but their contract terms meant they were only on the hook for *m*illions, IIRC

[Like a badger]

Also, if attacking Microsoft in court, the plaintiff's or their litigation funders will need to have very deep pockets. The other big tech companies won't be suing MS, and outside big tech there's few companies wealthy enough to seriously take them on.

[Doctor Syntax]

'Mercian firms

King Offa would like a word with you.

[Rich 2]

Well wasn’t there some US gov grilling of MS last year after some horrendous problem caused by MS? (I can’t remember the details now)

One thing that happened after that was that the US gov still continue to give MS boat-loads of money for the shit service they provide

I dunno! Maybe it makes sense in some parallel universe or a sitcom?

[MachDiamond]

"One thing that happened after that was that the US gov still continue to give MS boat-loads of money for the shit service they provide"

A mindset gets ingrained that business computing = M$ operating systems. It's the same, as everybody knows, that you start a retirement savings account when you're 5yo (a 401K in the US). I didn't. I bought a house and put the money there as money in a retirement account is locked up with massive penalties for early withdrawal. If your employer is matching funds, it makes sense. If they aren't, there is no point in taking out loans for things that cost more in interest than the savings account earns. The practice has been sold so hard for so long that people don't think about it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shareholder value

It's not just MS, practially every publicly traded business has degraded their products and services to maintain some arbitary profit margin demanded by major shareholders.

It's why enshittification is such a popular term right now, and it applies to just about everything.

Software, hardware, cars, food, clothes the quality of everything is dropping. Not the prices, the prices are all still right up there. And if the the business isn't squeezing everything from customers in terms of quality Vs price, then it's usually trying to get profit by exploiting those customers and their data through some barely legal side hussle involving selling their data to the highest bidder, whatever the consequences for the customer and themselves.

And now we get AI Slop to screw that last drop from us all either by force feeding yet more adverts or by making us all redundant.

It would be great if people pushed back by simply refusing to consume but I suspect that won't happen ever.

[kmorwath]

Re: Shareholder value

Nadella spent more time in killing products and laying off people than doing anything new or improve current products.

That type of CEO is hired exactly because he won't spend money into R&D, he will cut investments to increase profits.

Let's see when the AI bubble burst if he can keep is job.

[ariels-again]

Don't say "AI Slop"!

Reminder: Nadella specifically asked NOT to use the term "AI slop" to refer to quality issues appearing when companies prefer using AI over ensuring quality. It was even on TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/05/microsofts-nadella-wants-us-to-stop-thinking-of-ai-as-slop/. So please, no matter what, do not call this *AI slop*.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Don't say "AI Slop"!

Microslop Coprolite you say?

Don't say Microslop Coprolite?

Or say Microslop Coprolite.

All I know if it's out there in enough places then Microslop Coprolite will be statistically accurate name as far as Microslop Coprolite is concerned.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Don't say "AI Slop"!

I see what you did there with Microslop Coprolite

[sarusa]

Re: Don't say "AI Slop"!

Slopya Nadella

[Rich 2]

Re: Don't say "AI Slop"!

Errrr… no… I think I’ll still refer to it as slop thanks very much

[David Hicklin]

Re: Don't say "AI Slop"!

And I combine the old and new into Mico$lop.

Free for use anywhere.

[Anonymous Coward]

And Then There's All The Other "Cloud" Oligopolies...........

oligopoly, noun, a state of limited competition, in which a market is shared by a small number of producers or sellers

Just repeat after me: Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft...........

.............not much to choose, is there????

.............all crap..........all collecting my stuff.......all providing crap................and no where else for me to go.....................

Why is ElReg picking on Microsoft today......when there are so many other oligopolies to choose from????

[sarusa]

Re: And Then There's All The Other "Cloud" Oligopolies...........

Because this was mostly about Windows, not Azure. Yes, the other clouds are just as bad as Azure, but you're not running Oracle or Amazon's OS on your company desktops/laptops.

Should fewer company PCs be running Windows? Absolutely. But in practice large companies are locked in (or consider themselves to be) especially because they are so dependent on the abominations of Exchange / Outlook / Office / Teams. So Windows update quality control being complete vibe coded shite is a uniquely Microslop problem. I don't have to worry about Google taking down my PC with an update... yet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: And Then There's All The Other "Cloud" Oligopolies...........

@sarusa

Really?

Google and Android updates?

Amazon and AWS updates?

Meta and WhatsApp or Instagram updates?

Apple.......and so on!

"Mostly about Windows"......yes........but what about all those other "oligopoly updates" that will be "AI slop"......updates that NO ONE can avoid?

[Roland6]

Re: And Then There's All The Other "Cloud" Oligopolies...........

Well talking of cloud, what is significant here is the silence with respect to Azure and 365. Given the update failure rate for Windows updates, we might expect MS to also be tripping up with respect to cloud. Which may suggest one of the problems MS has is keeping talented people working on Windows…

[steelpillow]

Obviously

need to throw more AI at the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Dominat market position / abuse of position

I had been experimenting with Linux (initially Ubuntu) since about 2004 and using it occasionally on an old PC.

The shitfest that was W8 finally pushed me into using Linux a lot more and I found out that:

* Other than a particular CAD drawing package I could do all my report writing, net surfing, photo editing and spreadsheeting using Linux (swapped to Mint after the "unity" interface arrived).

* There was a very small number of customers for whom I needed to use .docx format and where LibreOffice didn't like the formatting or macros in the doc.

I still deliver the vast majority of my reports as PDFs and the customer neither knows, nor cares, what word processer I wrote it on.

For me the high point of Windows was W7.

I'm fine with W10 generally except for the spyware, but the thing that really grinds my gears is the amoiunt of time I have to spend re-booting, re-installing and repairing my W10 and SWMBO's W11 machine means that I have literally wasted days. In contrast Linux Mint just keeps going.

Unfortunately, M$ is in such a dominant market position that it's unlikely that regardless of how crappy the software is, users will just keep hanging in there not knowing any better.

[Anonymous Coward]

Still on Windows OS? You Dinosaur!

Serious IT is on UX or Linux variants........

[Joe W]

Re: Still on Windows OS? You Dinosaur!

Like MacOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Our organisation's slithering into Teams (because it's "free"!) has been slammed into reverse and we're returning to Zoom after months of fiasco.

[Nematode]

"To be fair to Microsoft..."

er, why?

[Boris the Cockroach]

Its a pity

we cant charge m$ for delivering a shite service.

Lets total up, 4 admins, 1/2 a day to prepare for an update to the companies fleet of PCs , lets charge say £120/hr for 4hrs times 4 admins, and then present that bill to m$

And of course I'm forgetting something, we have fairly specialised software running on our PCs which means the vendors have to prove that the software will still work after the update.

So thats their time too.

And then times it by however many companies world wide have to go through this every time an update is issued.

But give m$ their due, they keep a hell of a lot of people in a job. even if they dont actually work for m$

[ecofeco]

Re: Its a pity

Half day? Lucky you. Last year I was at a place that took them 6 months to upgrade from 10 to 11. With 5 of us working on it.

Why? Because of multiple obscure technicalities that would not allow half of the PCs to be upgraded that was buried in multiple locations in the OS. We finally traced it down to several files AND registry settings that were put there by the older SCCM system conflicting with Azure, InTune and Entra.

And that was after we eliminated the ones with outdated BIOS running TPM 1 and could never be updated. No BIOS update for them, ya know? Which still left several thousand we had to diagnose.

Why some and not others? We never did figure that out. Our best guess was update changes to SCCM, AD, InTune, Entra and Azure. Too many chefs in the kitchen.

The real jaw dropper came when the senior admins realized that they were also going to be desktop support in the future.

[David Hicklin]

Re: Its a pity

> we cant charge m$ for delivering a shite service

Mico$lops answer will be "sack the Admins and just let all devices connect direct to windows update - let us manage it for you using AI!"

[Homo.Sapien.Floridanus]

If the FDA oversaw OOB updates…

Kb1234577 aka Uptatium may cause profuse sweating, hypertension, panic and even death in some IT admins. If you have a weak heart, don’t install Updatium right away. Instead wait 30 days and monitor chat rooms to ensure Updatium is safe for you.

[ecofeco]

Becoming?

Where has every one been for the last 20 years?

[Anonymous Coward]

its not the developers

having been close to engineers at microsoft recently. the problem of bad updates is not the developers themselves. it seems there is a (QA?) middle layer in microsoft that release code to retail that engineers probably would object to, when known critical bugs exist. besides it seems there is lack of focus on solid testing group. even the code released to insiders dont get to test the code (patches and updates) actually released to the public. the developers have little or no power to influence those decision from the upper layer in management.microsoft internal release system and processes seems utterly broken. insider testing means little or nothing to guarantee stable releases. the process seems that features in a planned release must be released no matter with bugs or not.

[billdehaan]

Windows is a loss leader at this point

Twenty years ago, Windows was Microsoft's business model. It was the golden goose that printed cash for the company, which it used to not only maintain and develop Windows, but to fund their other endeavours.

Then, Office become more profitable. Windows was still important, of course, but it shared top billing. When Office became just as important, it and Windows became codependent, in the eyes of Microsoft, and were treated as such.

But then they focused on cloud services. And not so slowly, Office moved to the cloud. Windows became less of a partner to Office and more of an onramp.

Now, the focus (almost obsession) is on AI, and Windows, while still profitable, is now only about 15% of Microsoft's revenues. Windows doesn't have to develop new OS features, because Microsoft doesn't care about the OS; they see it as an AI entry point and a cloud onramp.

Customers do, however. As do investors. MS took a massive $400B stock loss, and companies have been giving scathing feedback, with governments and many major corporations either slowing Windows adoption, looking at split solutions, or migrating away from the OS entirely.

The message couldn't be clearer. The OS is turning into garbage because Microsoft is not only ignoring it, but focusing on nonsense customers to not want, and many are fleeing. The numbers finally got high enough that the accountants are starting to notice, which means the board notices.

So, MS will trot out the "we heard you" excuse, they'll reassign people to at least give the appearance of stability, for a quarter or two, and they'll tone down the avalanch of hated AI features being inflicted on customers.

Of course, as with Recall, once the bad press dies down, I expect them to go right back to what they were doing, only they'll be quieter about it.

[David Hicklin]

Re: Windows is a loss leader at this point

Mico$lop just like many other software companies are jumping onto the subscription model as it provides a regular revenue stream.

So you have Azure for the cloud and Orifice364 for the office apps, nice regular income. Need more? Just raise the subscription price! They are all locked in at this point and if they stop paying then access to the services will be lost.

Now all they need to do is to make Windows 12 a subscription OS and they are sorted.

And they can do this as they know that the big customers are the business's who are wedded and welded to the mico$lop ecosystems, and to change to another OS etc would be so disruptive and expensive that mico$lop know they won't do it - unless mico$slop screws up so badly that they are forced to sit up and take notice.