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Microsoft quietly emits patch to undo its earlier patch that broke Windows 10 networking

Make sure you reboot your box the right way

Microsoft has sneaked out a patch to get Windows 10 PCs back online after an earlier update broke networking for people's computers around the globe.

Since the end of last week, systems in the UK, US, Europe and beyond have automatically installed software from Microsoft, via Windows Update, that broke DHCP. That means some computers can't obtain their LAN-side IP addresses from their broadband routers, effectively randomly kicking them off the internet and their local network. That's confused the hell out of a lot of netizens.

It's not clear which Windows Update patch caused the cockup, as Microsoft is deliberately vague about the contents of each upgrade on its website, and the Redmond giant refused to say which download was the culprit.

In any case, we spotted that KB3206632, released on Tuesday this week as part of December's Patch Tuesday, contained the following bug fix:

Addressed a service crash in CDPSVC that in some situations could lead to the machine not being able to acquire an IP address.

Well, that sounds like the ticket. CDPSvc is the Connected Devices Platform Service. We asked Microsoft if that particular patch corrects the earlier issue, but as usual, the software goliath is allergic to saying its own patch ID numbers so, in the absence of any hard confirmation, we were left to assume KB3206632 is the fix.

“We released an update on December 13 that will automatically install and resolve connectivity difficulties reported by some customers," a Microsoft spokeswoman told The Register.

"To receive the update, customers may need to first restart their PCs by selecting Start on the taskbar, clicking the Power button, and choosing Restart (not Shut down). Additional guidance can be found on our support forum here."

As we were just about to publish this article, Microsoft updated its website to confirm KB3206632 is the patch you need to install to cure the networking connectivity headache, provided you follow the above steps. So, after some not-so-gentle persuasion by El Reg this week, there's finally a solution in sight: get KB3206632.

The documentation for the '632 update mentions the download replaces the KB3201845 update issued on December 9 that was thought by some to be the root cause of the broken DHCP support, although we've yet to see any conclusive proof it is the culprit. Isn't it fun riding Microsoft's operating system updates rollercoaster? ®

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