Microsoft indicates that some virtual machines running Windows Server 2022 are not booting after installing the patches from the most recent Patch Tuesday. More specifically, this involves VMs running on different versions of VMware vSphere ESXi.
The boot problem occurs on those vm’s that have Secure Boot enabled and are running on the VMware ESXi 6.7 U2/U3 and 7.0x versions. After installing the latest KB5022842 update, Windows Server 2022 may not boot.
Three workarounds
Microsoft and VMware are investigating the problem but are not coming up with a solution as of yet. VMware itself has published three workarounds. As a first workaround, once administrators have installed the update, they had better upgrade the VMware ESXi Host in which the affected VMs are running to VMware ESXi 8.0.
A second option is to disable Secure Boot on the VMs before installing the update. VMware offers a roadmap for this. The third and final temporary solution is to delay installing the KB5022842 update.
Updating VMware ESXi is recommended anyway, though; there are currently security vulnerability issues that could allow VMware ESXi hosts to be infected with ransomware.
Servers migrated to Windows 2022
In addition to the boot problems of Windows Server 2022 VMs, Microsoft discovered another problem following the recent Patch Tuesday updates. WSUS servers upgraded to Windows 2022 are failing to push the February 2022 Windows 11 22H2 updates to clients. This affects only those WSUS servers that upgraded from Windows Server 2016 or 2019 to the latest version.
Microsoft has made a workaround available for this problem. Administrators must reinsert Unified Update Platform (UUP) MIME types accidentally removed during the update. These deleted types cause the update distribution problems.
For the addition process, the tech giant released a guide.
Also read: Microsoft Patch Tuesday patches 3 zero-days and 77 other flaws