Microsoft is currently investigating issues with VPN connections reported by users following the April 2024 security update for Windows 11. The KB5036893 update, released on April 9, has disrupted VPN connections that use TPM-backed certificates, causing significant user inconvenience.
Users have encountered problems where VPN connections fail to recognise necessary certificates, with errors such as “a certificate could not be found” being reported. This issue has been specifically noted in discussions on platforms like Reddit, where users are seeking solutions to regain VPN functionality.
Microsoft has acknowledged the problem, stating that the company is actively looking into the user reports and expects to provide more information soon. Currently, the only suggested workaround is to uninstall the recent KB5036893 update. Microsoft is also hinting at a forthcoming release that may contain a hotfix to resolve the issue permanently.
This is not the first time Microsoft has dealt with VPN-related issues following an update. About a year ago, the company resolved significant speed issues affecting L2TP/IPsec VPN connections that were introduced by a previous update. While Microsoft’s Windows Insider programme is intended to catch such bugs in early versions of updates, the nature of security patches sometimes leads to unforeseen complications like the current VPN problems.
