Microsoft warned customers earlier this week that the November 2026 security updates may break printing for documents with complex formatting. The issue affects people trying to print documents with images that have zero height or width on server devices running Windows Server 2016 or later and on client devices running Windows 10 or later.
Printing with zero-height images is the issue Microsoft is investigating
Microsoft said the problem appears after installing the November 2026 Windows security update or later updates. In that case, printing might fail for documents that contain images rendered with a height or width value of zero at the selected printing resolution. Those images can be part of complex document formatting, including invisible images used as a document watermark, layout anchoring, or generation tools that may insert image objects even when no graphic is present. The company said it is investigating the issue and will share more information when it becomes available.
Word documents and other apps are affected
The bug mainly affects users printing Microsoft Word documents through the Windows Graphics Device Interface, or GDI. Microsoft said the failure may also happen when printing from other applications. The warning came in a service alert seen by BleepingComputer.
Previous Windows printing problems
Microsoft has dealt with other printing issues tied to Windows updates before. In March 2025, an update caused USB printers to print random text, and in July 2025 another update broke the Print to PDF feature. The company later said August 2026 .NET Framework cumulative updates broke printing and PDF export in apps that use the Windows Presentation Foundation UI framework.
This week, Microsoft also confirmed that Patch Tuesday security updates triggered Windows activation and licensing failures with 0x80041008 error codes. It said Windows updates released since the October Patch Tuesday caused SQL Server performance and stability issues. The company also warned that the November 2026 Windows 11 security updates fail to install on systems with the October 2026 preview update.
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