Printing Breaks, Activation Fails, Installs Stall: November’s Windows Updates Bring a Week of Side Effects
Microsoft has confirmed that its November 2026 Windows security updates can break printing of some documents and cause KMS activation errors, alongside install failures and SQL Server issues. Here is what is affected, and how a staged rollout keeps a bad update from reaching every machine at once.
Why Staged Rollouts Beat Both Patching Blindly and Not Patching at All
Picture a 40-person office on Wednesday morning. Overnight, every PC installed this month’s Windows security updates. By 9:30, the front desk can’t print the contract template the firm has used for years. Other documents print fine. Around lunch, the person who sets up new laptops runs the usual activation command and gets an error code nobody has seen before. Neither problem is an attack. Both are side effects Microsoft has now confirmed in its November 2026 updates.
The details come from two BleepingComputer reports, one on the printing problem and one on the activation failures, both based on Microsoft service alerts.
The document that will not print
The printing bug is specific. Once the November update or a later one is installed, printing can fail for documents that contain an image rendered with zero height or zero width at the selected print resolution. Most people would never notice those images. Microsoft notes they can appear in complex formatting, such as “invisible” images used for watermarks or layout anchoring, or ones inserted by document-generation tools even when there is no actual graphic. Microsoft Word documents printed through the Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI) are mainly affected, but other applications can also fail. The problem covers Windows 10 and later on the desktop and Windows Server 2016 and later.
That explains why only one template failed in our imaginary office: it was probably carrying one of those zero-size images.
The activation error
The second problem hits organizations that script Windows activation or use the Software Licensing Management Tool (slmgr). After the update, running the slmgr.vbs /skms-domain command or slmgr.vbs /ipk can return error 0x80041008 (“Invalid parameter”) on Windows 10 21H2 and 22H2, Windows 11 23H2, and Windows Server 2019, 2022 and 2025. Machines being set up for Key Management Service (KMS) activation may fail to activate.
The good news: devices that are already activated stay activated. Microsoft says KMS-activated devices typically remain activated for up to 180 days, and machines that already have the right KMS client key and configuration, and don’t need those commands, should not be affected. Microsoft says a fix is coming in the next few days and tells organizations that need help sooner to contact Microsoft Support for business.
And that is not all
The same week, BleepingComputer reports, Microsoft also confirmed that the November Windows 11 security updates fail to install on systems that have the October 2026 preview update, and that Windows updates released since October’s Patch Tuesday are causing SQL Server performance and stability problems. Printing trouble after updates is not new either: Microsoft dealt with update-related printing bugs in March and July 2025 and again with an August 2026 .NET Framework update.
Why skipping updates is not the answer
When updates cause this much friction, it is tempting to switch them off. But security updates close holes attackers actively use, and a delay of weeks can leave you more exposed than a broken print job ever would. A better approach is to add layers around the update process so a bad patch reaches a few machines first, not everyone at once.
A layered update approach
- Layer 1: a pilot group. Send updates first to a small set of machines used by people who represent each department, including whoever prints the heavily formatted documents and whoever builds new PCs. Give them a day or two before the wider rollout.
- Layer 2: staged rings. Most management tools can push updates in waves. Windows Update for Business rings, Intune or a remote monitoring and management platform are common examples, and any tool that lets you pause a ring will do the job.
- Layer 3: watch the known-issues list. Microsoft publishes known issues in its release health information. Have someone check it during the pilot window each month.
- Layer 4: servers on their own track. Database and line-of-business servers, like those running SQL Server, should be updated on a separate schedule with a backup or snapshot first and a quick performance check afterward.
- Layer 5: a rollback and workaround plan. Know how to pause or uninstall a specific update, and keep a fallback for key tasks, such as saving the problem template to PDF on an unaffected machine, until a fix arrives.
- Layer 6: keep preview updates off production machines. The Windows 11 install failure only hits systems with the optional October preview, a good reason to keep previews to test devices.
What this means for your company
This month’s problems are annoying but manageable, and none of them is a reason to stop patching. What they show is the value of a deliberate process: a small pilot, staged waves, someone watching for known issues, and a plan to pause or roll back. Businesses with that process find out about broken print jobs from five people, not fifty. If you image new PCs or rely on scripted KMS activation, check your build process this week and keep an eye out for Microsoft’s fix.
Do your updates still go to every machine on the same night? A calmer Patch Tuesday is within reach. Reach out to Layer 7 Data Solutions to discuss how we’ve helped companies similar to yours.
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