Microsoft has been at the top of its game in its efforts of enabling work from home environments. Microsoft Teams added over 12 million new users every single day of the week and reached 44 million active users (reported on March 18th). But, it appears the company's desktop operating system is going to be its fall down yet again as a new Windows 10 bug is creating new challenges for many users.
The Windows maker has issued a warning notifying that a Windows 10 bug is preventing several apps from connecting to the internet. These include (but not limited to) Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Office, Outlook, Internet Explorer 11, and other essential apps being used by millions of employees worldwide during the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
The bug impacts most of the supported versions of the operating system and users who applied cumulative updates released on February 27 and later (KB4535996). Microsoft says that the issue affects PCs that are using proxies or VPN, which is a standard procedure for work from home for most of the companies especially since cybersecurity attacks have increased as more people have shifted to work out of the usually more secure enterprise environments.
Devices using a proxy might show limited or no internet connection status
Devices using a manual or auto-configured proxy, especially with a virtual private network (VPN), might show limited or no internet connection status in the Network Connectivity Status Indicator (NCSI) in the notification area. This might happen when connected or disconnected to a VPN or after changing state between the two. Devices with this issue, might also have issues reaching the internet using applications that use WinHTTP or WinInet. Examples of apps that might be affected on devices in this state are as follows but not limited to Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Office, Office365, Outlook, Internet Explorer 11, and some version of Microsoft Edge.
Workaround to this latest Windows 10 update bug
Thankfully, workaround is easy. Microsoft says you "might be able to" address the problem by just restarting your device. It's unclear if this is working for all affected systems or just a few.
The company says it's working to deliver an out-of-band update to fix this issue and this Windows 10 update will be delivered by early April. Let's hope that upcoming update doesn't bring any new issues with it.
The affected versions include Windows 10 November 2019 Update (v1909), May 2019 Update (version 1903), October 2018 Update (v1809), Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019, version 1803, and version 1709.
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