Windows 11 Update Breaks WiFi connections

December 2023 update breaks some wifi connections, but not all.

December 2023 Windows 11 update woes

If you don’t do your Windows updates as soon as they come out, or you are still on Windows 10, this will not apply to you.

However, if, like me, you apply the updates when they come out, you ‘may’ have experienced problems connecting to certain, but not all, wifi networks.

The update itself

This update purports to help AMD, Intel and even Realtek drivers. I say purports because even their own patch notes don’t really contain any real substance. You can read a more detailed article here.

I think at this point, at least with the December 2023 update, if you are not experiencing any graphic issues, you might want to consider holding off on the update, as myself and other technology companies are only able to speculate the value of the update.

The potential caveat though is Microsoft claims this same update offers some security updates, but once again the patch notes lack any substance.

Random connection issues

The really frustrating part to this is you may still be able to connect to certain networks, such as your home, but not others.

It seems the larger portion of connection issues are when attempting to connect to enterprise, public or school wifi networks that are using the 802.1x protocol for authentication.

There is a lot of evidence pointing to this possibly being a Qualcomm adapter issue as they tend to have out of date drivers and are popular in the education, enterprise and public wifi setups.

Possible fix

There are several variations of the 802.x protocols that wifi use. It seems disabling the 802.11r fixes this issue in many instances.

The 802.11r is essentially the protocol that maximizes your connection speed when roaming.

However, disabling it can cause slow downs when roaming and attempting to connect to various different wifi networks.

If all else fails

Microsoft has a built in rollback feature simply known as “Known Issues Rollback” or KIR. Here’s a link to learn more about KIR should you need it.

Essentially, in the background, Windows keeps two different sets of programming code. One for the pre-update and one for the post-update.

If this problem affects you, you can simply do the rollback and a reboot should ‘roll you back’ to the pre-update.

However, be aware, while it’s often just a rollback and reboot, annoyingly, it can still take 24 hours for this to ‘fix’ the issue.