Microsoft blamed for Windows 11 KB5044284 automatically upgrading Server 2022 to 2025

Windows Server 2025 was made generally available this week alongside System Center 2025. The company also released a list of validated processors and confirmed it is an LTSC release.

However, one can say it hasn't been a smooth landing, as with most other such Windows feature updates, since IT and system admins are already crying major foul as they find that their systems are automatically being in-place upgraded to Windows Server 2025 from Server 2022.

The issue, weirdly, is being caused by KB5044284, which is the October Patch Tuesday update for Windows 11, and not a Server release, and there appears to be a case of mistaken identity as a Heimdal employee has explained on a Reddit post.

After the issue was identified, Heimdal blocked KB5044284, and the firm blamed Microsoft for the misclassification of the said update. The employee writes:

Andrei from Heimdal here, man, I'm really sorry for the havoc that was created with this update, our team (thanks for raising this with them - I have a feeling you were the first to bring it up to our Customer Success team) managed to pinpoint this and blocked this update across all server policies to avoid any further upgrades from 2022 to 2025

 

..

 

Here's the official com. that just went out a while ago:
On 5th Nov 12.16UTC, Heimdal was notified by a customer about unexpected upgrades related to Windows Server 2025 in their environment. Due to the limited initial footprint, identifying the root cause took some time. By 18:05 UTC, we traced the issue to the Windows Update API, where Microsoft had mistakenly labelled the Windows Server 2025 upgrade as KB5044284.

 

Our Analysis and Fix:
Our team discovered this discrepancy in our patching repository, as the GUID for the Windows Server 2025 upgrade does not match the usual entries for KB5044284 associated with Windows 11. This appears to be an error on Microsoft's side, affecting both the speed of release and the classification of the update. After cross-checking with Microsoft’s KB repository, we confirmed that the KB number indeed references Windows 11, not Windows Server 2025.

 

Currently, we can see that approximately 7% of our customers have been impacted by this upgrade. To prevent further unintended upgrades, we have immediately blocked KB5044284 across all server group policies.

It is noteworthy here that Microsoft did not offer any particular KB number for Windows Server 2025 release, as it was released as build 26100.1742.

For those who may not be familiar with it, Heimdal offers a Patch and Asset Management Module (AMM) for IT professionals, wherein updates can be managed and deployed via Group Policy settings.

It is unclear at the moment if other such AMMs are affected by this too.

Source

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