Microsoft has another Windows update problem on its hands. Recent Windows 11 updates are causing print jobs to fail on some systems, and Microsoft has acknowledged the issue and published a workaround.
- The Mess: Recent updates including KB5120708, KB5120705 and KB5120710 can break printing. Microsoft pushed the updates, users got broken print queues, and now administrators are being asked to work around Microsoft’s own regression.
- What Actually Happened: The problem is not a theoretical security bug. It is the classic Windows update trade-off: patch the operating system, then discover that something people actually use every day has stopped working. Microsoft is investigating the printing failure and has already documented a workaround for affected machines.
This matters because printing is still deeply embedded in business workflows. Invoices. Shipping labels. Medical paperwork. Warehouse documents. Internal forms. A broken browser feature is annoying. A broken printer in an office can stop an entire process.
And this is happening while Microsoft’s August security updates are already unusually large. Security researchers counted hundreds of vulnerabilities addressed in the August release, including a zero-day that had been exploited in attacks.
That creates an ugly administrator problem.
You cannot simply say “don’t install Windows updates.” That’s terrible security practice. But blindly deploying every update to thousands of machines is not exactly clever either.
The sane approach is staged deployment.
Test first. Deploy second. Monitor third.
- The Damage: A failed print subsystem can disrupt ordinary users and business operations, especially on machines that depend on Windows printing for daily workflows.
The security angle makes this more annoying. Administrators are forced to balance two failures: leaving systems unpatched versus deploying a patch that breaks a business function.
For home users, the impact may be limited to a printer refusing to cooperate. For enterprises, it can mean support tickets multiplying across departments and employees suddenly unable to complete routine tasks.
Windows administrators have seen this movie before.
- The Fix: If affected, follow Microsoft’s published workaround, test printing before broad deployment, and keep Windows patched rather than permanently blocking security updates.
Do not rip out the entire update strategy because one component broke.
Instead, identify affected machines, document the exact Windows build and update package, apply Microsoft’s workaround, and verify that printing works before rolling the configuration across the environment.
For enterprise fleets, this is another argument for deployment rings and proper update testing. Production should not be Microsoft’s beta-testing environment.
Bugstoday Verdict: Windows updates are necessary. Blind trust is not. Patch — but test the damn thing first.
