Microsoft has acknowledged a known issue in which the November 2026 Windows security updates can prevent certain documents from printing. According to a service alert reviewed by BleepingComputer, printing may fail on Windows 10 and later clients and on Windows Server 2016 and later when a document contains images rendered with a height or width of zero at the selected printing resolution.

What is affected

Microsoft says the problem appears after installing the November 2026 Windows security update, or any later update. The zero-dimension images are typically used in complex document formatting, such as invisible images that serve as watermarks, layout anchors, or object generation aids. The bug mainly impacts Microsoft Word documents printed through the Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI), though Microsoft notes that failures may also occur when printing from other applications.

Recent printing regressions

This is not the first time Windows updates have disrupted printing. Microsoft previously addressed a March 2025 update that caused USB printers to print random text, and a July 2025 update that broke the Print to PDF feature. The company also reported that August 2026 .NET Framework cumulative updates broke printing and PDF export in applications built on the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) framework.

Other November update problems

  • Windows activation and licensing failures with 0x80041008 error codes following this month’s Patch Tuesday updates.
  • SQL Server performance and stability issues linked to Windows updates released after the October Patch Tuesday.
  • Failures installing the November 2026 Windows 11 security updates on systems that have the October 2026 preview update installed.

What administrators should do

Administrators supporting environments that print Word documents with complex formatting should test print workflows after deploying the November updates and monitor for print job failures. Microsoft’s service alert is the authoritative source for the affected update identifiers and any available workarounds or fixes, and teams should consult it before changing their patch deployment plans.