When an Upgrade Breaks the Network: Windows 11 23H2→25H2 and the 802.1X Policy Wipe

A quietly persistent bug in in-place Windows upgrades has resurfaced across recent Windows 11 version jumps and is creating a painful, real-world problem for enterprise IT teams: wired 802.1X authentication profiles applied by Group Policy are being deleted during some upgrades, leaving machines offline until a manual recovery is performed. What looks like a routine OS update can turn into