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November update silently breaks printers

Printing may fail on documents containing zero-size images; Windows 10 and later and Windows Server 2016 and later are affected

Quick Look

Microsoft has confirmed that the November 2026 security updates created a printing error in Windows.
Printing may fail on documents containing zero height or width images.
The issue affects Windows 10 and later clients and Windows Server 2016 and later servers.

AI-generated summary

Why It Matters

Microsoft has confirmed that the November 2026 security updates created a printing error in Windows. Windows activation and licensing errors (0x80041008) and SQL Server performance problems were also detected in the same update package. There have been various printing-related update problems in recent years.

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Microsoft has confirmed a Windows printing bug caused by the November 2026 security updates. The problem occurs in documents with complex formatting. There may be no visible problem in the document.

Why does Windows printing error occur?

According to the service alert published by the company, the problem occurs in documents containing images with zero height or width. When the November 2026 security update or later updates are installed, these images may fail to print at the selected printing resolution.

Such images are often used consciously. It can be placed to add an "invisible" watermark to the document or to fix the layout. Some document creation tools can also add visual objects even if there is no graphic. The user may not realize that there is such an element in his document.

Which systems are affected?

The issue affects Windows 10 and later client versions. Windows Server 2016 and later servers are also affected. The bug mainly hits those who print Microsoft Word documents via Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI). GDI is Windows' legacy graphical interface that draws to the printer and screen. The same error may occur when printing from other applications.

There are other problems in the same month

Microsoft also confirmed this week that November's Patch Tuesday updates caused Windows activation and licensing errors. Errors appear with code 0x80041008. Updates released since October Patch Tuesday cause performance and stability problems in SQL Server.

November 2026 Windows 11 security updates fail to install on systems that have the October 2026 preview update installed. Some users may experience problems with both printing and updating.

Printing problems are not new to Microsoft. The update in March 2025 caused USB printers to print random text. In July 2025, the "Print to PDF" feature was broken. More recently, the August 2026 .NET Framework cumulative updates broke printing and PDF export in applications using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

Microsoft has not yet provided a fix date for the Windows printing error.

Open Questions

When will the fix be released?
Which specific update packages cause the problem?
Is there a temporary solution?