Many users have complained that their Windows 11 -enabled notebooks and PCs are having WiFi problems, which was later identified to be caused by December 12th's KB5033375 security patch rolled out via Windows Update. This update is affecting 802.11r 'Fast Roaming' adapters, mostly made by Qualcomm and MediaTek.

What makes this issue annoying is that the 802.11r standard uses a feature called Fast Basic Service Set Transition (FT) which allows users to move from one access to another access point while having continuous wireless connectivity. This is especially useful in offices, factories, college campuses and anywhere that has multiple access points. Brunel University warned about the affected software patch and recommended removing it to resume using the on-campus WiFi network.

One of the two stop-gap methods was to disable 802.11r, which isn't a practical solution compared to uninstalling the KB5033375 update. As with most security patch issues, removing the affected patch usually helps.

A sad, familiar story for Windows users

Issues caused by Windows updates are pretty well-documented, thanks to official Windows forums. Recently, Microsoft rolled out an update for another issue which renamed all printers to HP . Microsoft has not responded to the issue related to 802.11r yet, but it's fair to say the software giant will roll out a fix eventually. It only took nearly a month for it to issue a fix to the printer issue. You can live without Wi-Fi for that long, right?