Microsoft has fixed a problem caused by the Windows 11 version 22H2 update that crashed the Remote Desktop application on some systems.
The resolution to the issue came this week in Redmond’s KB5022360 preview cumulative update among more than a dozen other fixes and enhancements. This was Microsoft’s C update for January, giving Windows 11 users advanced notice of what will appear in the February Patch Tuesday onslaught.
The release doesn’t include security fixes and are optional so aren’t automatically installed; users have to do that themselves.
The vendor has spent the past two months since releasing the latest OS version in November 2022 applying workarounds and fixes to a number of issues that arose after the release of the operating systems 2022 update.
In this case, some users, after installing the update, found that the Windows Remote Desktop application would stop responding when connecting through a Remote Desktop gateway or Remote Desktop Connection Broker.
“This issue can be observed when the client is at the ‘Loading virtual machine’ or ‘Configuring remote connection’ steps, and might occur regardless of the OS version installed on the remote computer,” Microsoft wrote in November on its Windows Health Dashboard page.
“In some cases, the error message ‘Your Remote Desktop Services session has ended’ can appear. If the application becomes unresponsive, it might need to be terminated using Windows Task Manager.”
At the time, the vendor offered a workaround that involved configuring a special Group Policy for both managed and unmanaged devices, though even the workaround came with a warning that Remote Desktop session connecting over a WAN could be hit with reduced performance after.
The workaround also disabled the User Datagram Protocol for all Remote Desktop connections from the device. Redmond recommended ditching the workaround once the problem was fixed.
The KB5022360 update also takes care of an issue that arose earlier this month involving languages that use multibyte character sets, like Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. At times, the operation for converting characters didn’t function correctly, with the function automatically selecting an incorrect range of characters for conversion.
The result was that the conversation candidate window would display unexpected options.
“Text conversion occurs when a series of characters is transformed into different characters by means of user selection,” Microsoft wrote. “This commonly involves additional Prediction candidate and Conversion candidate windows, which appear near the cursor position while typing.”
Microosft’s software update also fixes a problem in Windows Server 2022 that caused domain controllers to stop responding when users processed Lightweight Director Access Protocol (LDAP) requests.
Other issues that have been resolved include affected functions like searchindexer.exe (randomly stopped users from signing in or out), the Domain Name System (DNS) suffix search list (the parent domain might be missing), and firmware Trusted Platform Modules (which stops users from using AutoPilot to set up systems).
Microsoft also said it is aware of issues that arise from this update, including around provisioning packages on Windows 11 22H2. The OS might only be partially configured and the Out Of Box Experience, a parade of screens for licensing agreements, internet connections, and other tasks during the initial set up of a system.
Users should provision the device before upgrading to the latest version of Windows 11. Microsoft plans to fix the issue in an upcoming release.
In addition, copying large, multi-byte files could take longer than expected on version 22H2. Again, Redmond offered a workaround – using file copy tools that don’t use cache manager – and is working on a resolution. ®
