Earlier this week, Microsoft rolled out a new set of updates for the first Patch Tuesday of 2022. This included updates to both Windows 11 and Windows 10 and there were a couple of fixes bundled in. However, it looks like the latest updates are causing problems with VPN connections, both on Windows 10 and Windows 11.

The issue was first reported by users on Reddit (via BleepingComputer), who noted that Windows 10 PCs were enable to establish VPN connections after the update. When attempting to connect to a VPN using the built-in Windows client, you might see the message reading "Can't connect to VPN. The L2TP connection attempt failed because the security layer encountered a processing error during initial negotiations with the remote computer." Additionally, the Windows Event Viewer will flag the error with code 789, simply saying that the connection failed.

Users have reported the issue with a variety of VPN providers, but it's mostly only happening if you use the built-in Windows VPN client. Affected VPN devices include Ubiquiti, SonicWall, Cisco Meraki, and WatchGuard Firewalls, and apparently, the WatchGuard client is also affected by the same problem.

Right now, the quickest solution to the problem seems to be uninstalling the update from your computer. You can do this by going to the Control Panel and going into Programs -> View installed updates. From here, select the Windows update from this Patch Tuesday, which is labeled as KB5009566 (for Windows 11) or KB5009543 (on Windows 10). It should be at the top of the Microsoft Windows section of the page. You'll need administrator privileges to do this.

Uninstalling a Windows update that's causing issues

This isn't the only major issues being caused by the latest Patch Tuesday updates if you're in a business environment. According to a separate BleepingComputer report, the latest Windows Server updates are causing issues from constant reboots, the inability to use Hyper-V, and rendering ReFS drives unaccessible. You'll also need to uninstall the latest updates in order to resolve these issues.

Hopefully, Microsoft will issue fixes sooner rather than later. Sometimes, problems with updates can be remedied using something called Known Issue Rollback, which only disables problematic parts of an update without removing all the security fixes it includes. At writing time, the company has yet to acknowledge the problem in its list of known issues.