Microsoft has suspended the cumulative update of Windows 10 KB5001649, most likely due to installation issues and reported crashes. Microsoft is now offering the previously released KB5001567 emergency update.
The March 2021 updates were a big mess during printing, with update after update causing new issues.
After the release of the cumulative updates of Windows 10 KB5000802 and KB5000808 in March 2021, users ‘APC_INDEX_MISMATCH for win32kfull.sys’ started experiencing BSOD during printing. Other users encountered various issues, such as blank pages, black bars in printouts, and unprinted background graphics.
To resolve these issues, Microsoft released the emergency update KB5001567 on March 15th. While this update fixed the bug that caused Windows 10 to crash during module printing, it did not resolve the other issues that users were experiencing.
“The updates caused text and graphical issues while printing to local (usb) Zebra industrial label printers – different models. Once KB was removed, all printing was normalized. Watch out for KB5000802, KB5000808, KB5000809 and KB5000822, depending on the version of Windows 10, “a user reported these printing issues in one of our articles.
To resolve the remaining issues, Microsoft released a second OOB emergency update on March 18, known as KB5001649. This update was supposed to fix formatting issues, missing graphic elements, blank pages, or black bars on printed pages.
Microsoft released this update through Windows Update as an optional update, and it replaced the previously released KB5001567 update, as shown below.
Microsoft Interrupts Implementation of KB5001649 Printing Solution
As of today, it appears that Microsoft has interrupted the implementation of KB5001649, as it is no longer available on any of our devices that were previously offered the update.
Instead, when checking Windows Update, the same devices are now offering the KB5001567 update that was released earlier this week. Since KB5001649 replaced KB5001567, the only explanation is that KB5001649 is no longer offered via Windows Update.
Windows Latest and BornCity have also confirmed this interruption of the update KB5001649.
Microsoft has not provided an official reason for the outage, and the support bulletin KB5001649 has not been updated with any information. Furthermore, the update is still available via the Microsoft Update Catalog, just no longer via Windows Update.
The deployment was probably interrupted due to the many reports [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] users get the error “We were unable to install this update, but you can try again (0x80070541)” when trying to install the update.
Another possible reason is that people are still crashing when they hit with the installed update.
“It did not work for the case I had today. I was running KB5001649, but when I tried to print (Kyocera TaskAlfa), the system crashed. I’ll return to turn off the update for the time being,” reported a reader in one of our articles.
Unless you are experiencing printing issues, it may be wise to delay these optional non-security updates until Microsoft can provide further information.
BleepingComputer contacted Microsoft to find out why the update was interrupted, but has not yet received a response.