Windows printing bug WI1549472: Word documents fail to print after November 2026 updates

Microsoft has confirmed that the November 2026 Windows security updates can stop documents from printing when they contain an image whose height or width is zero at the selected print resolution. The bug is tracked as service alert WI1549472, it covers Windows 11 26H2 back to Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2016 and Windows Server 2025 back to 2016, and as of 14 November 2026 Microsoft has published neither a fix nor a workaround. The problem is easy to trigger by accident, because such "invisible" images are often added by watermarking tools, templates and document generators without the user ever seeing them.

Key points

• Microsoft says printing "might fail" after the November 2026 security update, or any later update, for documents with an image of zero height or width at the selected print resolution (alert WI1549472).
• Microsoft observed it when printing Microsoft Word documents through the Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI), and says other applications "might also be affected".
• The alert lists Windows 11 26H2 down to Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2016, and Windows Server 2025 down to Windows Server 2016.
• The Register reports that the printing problem "remains under investigation"; we found no published fix, timeline or Microsoft workaround.
• A separate bug in the same update, activation error 0x80041008 in slmgr.vbs, is tracked as WI1549486 and has its own fix; see our earlier article linked below.

What to do

• Check whether you are affected. You are only exposed if the November update (released 10 November 2026) is installed. The cumulative updates named on Microsoft's pages include KB5132061 for Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2, KB5132059 for Windows 11 26H1, KB5131096 for Windows 10 22H2 and 21H2, and KB5131080 for Windows Server 2025. Later updates carry the same bug according to the alert's wording.
• Look at the pattern of failures. If one document or template fails everywhere while other print jobs work, a zero-size image is a likely cause. Documents produced by the same generator (invoices, forms, watermarked templates) will tend to fail together. This diagnostic advice is ours, not Microsoft's.
• Do not uninstall the update as a first step. The November update contains the month's security fixes; one site that tracks the issue advises against removing it by default, and we agree that a print problem affecting some documents rarely justifies dropping a month of patches. Our own article on the November Patch Tuesday lists what it fixes.
• Try a different route for the one document you need. One third-party blog suggests saving the document as a PDF and printing that. Microsoft has not confirmed this as a workaround, so treat it as something to test, not as guidance.
• Report it. Microsoft's own channel for update problems is the Feedback Hub app on Windows, and organisations can contact Microsoft Support for business. Microsoft names that route for the separate activation bug; it has not said the same for printing.
• Watch the Microsoft 365 admin center. The alert is a service notification. We did not find it on the public Windows release health pages we opened for Windows 11 26H2, Windows 11 23H2 and Windows Server 2022, so administrators should read it in their tenant.

What happened

On 10 November 2026, Microsoft shipped its November security updates for Windows. Within days it posted service alert WI1549472. In its words, as quoted by The Register, "the issue was observed when printing Microsoft Word documents using the Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI), but printing from other applications might also be affected."

The trigger is narrow but hard to spot. Printing can fail for documents that contain images with a height or width of zero at the selected print resolution. Those images may not be visible on screen. The Register, summarising the alert, says they "can form part of a document's watermarking or layout" and that after the update those invisible objects can make the printed document disappear. The site Windows Forum, reading the same alert, lists three example sources Microsoft gives: invisible watermarks, layout anchors and document-generation tools.

Microsoft has not said which applications beyond Word it has reproduced the failure in. It has not published a resolving update. The Register says the printing problem remains under investigation, while the same article reports that Microsoft expects a fix for the separate activation problem "in the coming days". HowToGeek, which covered the story on 13 November, likewise found no printing workaround and no timeline.

Background

Windows printing has had a rough year. HowToGeek's report recalls that Microsoft fixed a bug that made USB printers print random text in March, a broken "Print to PDF" feature in July, and an October bug that caused error 87 when adding Active Directory printers. Each of those was a different component; the common thread is only that print paths are old, widely depended on, and touched by many security changes.

GDI is the original Windows 2D drawing interface. When an application prints through it, the application describes the page as drawing calls, including calls to draw bitmaps at a destination width and height, and the print driver or the print system turns those into what the printer needs. A bitmap drawn with a width or height of zero is a legal but degenerate call, and a typical application never draws one on purpose. The alert's phrase "at the selected print resolution" suggests that whether an image ends up at zero size depends on the resolution chosen, because sizes are computed in device units. That reading is the interpretation of the Windows Forum article, not confirmed behaviour, and Microsoft has not published the root cause.

The same November update also introduced the activation problem, which we covered separately: slmgr.vbs commands such as /skms-domain and /ipk fail with error 0x80041008 on several Windows versions. Microsoft's pages for that problem name fix updates, for example KB5136487 on Windows Server 2022. The printing alert has no equivalent yet.

How the failure plays out

Because the cause sits inside the document and not in the printer, the symptoms look unlike a normal printer fault. The printer is online, other documents print, and the driver shows no error. Only one class of file fails. That is why administrators may first suspect a driver or spooler problem and lose time on it.

The Register's report puts the exposure wide: it lists Windows 11 26H2 through Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2016 for client versions and Windows Server 2025 to 2016 for servers. Windows Forum, quoting the alert through an AskWoody repost, reports that no row of the table lists a resolving update yet. We could not independently open the alert itself, which lives in the Microsoft 365 admin center, so the exact list of builds comes from those two outlets and from Microsoft's public update pages for the KB numbers named above.

What it means

For individuals, the risk is limited: most home documents contain no zero-size images, and a PDF round trip may get the one stubborn document out. For businesses it is a different picture. Invoices, HR forms, shipping labels and templated letters are often produced by software that stamps layout anchors or watermark layers into every page. One bad template can mean hundreds of failed jobs, and a print server running an affected Windows Server version would see the same failures for every user. That scenario is a risk assessment from Windows Forum and from us; no outlet has yet reported a specific company hit.

There is also a policy cost. Security teams normally want the monthly update installed within days. A bug that blocks printing for some documents creates pressure to defer or roll back, and Microsoft's "or later updates" wording means skipping November alone would not clearly avoid it. The practical answer for most organisations is to keep the update, identify the affected templates, and apply a fix when Microsoft ships one.

What we don't know yet

• Whether any application besides Word has been shown to fail; Microsoft says only that others "might".
• Whether the failure depends on printer driver, print resolution or a specific print path.
• The root cause, and which component of the November update changed the behaviour.
• When a fix will arrive, and whether it will come through the December 2026 Patch Tuesday, an out-of-band update or a Known Issue Rollback. Microsoft has not said.
• Whether the alert will appear on the public release health pages.

What to watch next

Watch the Microsoft 365 admin center for updates to WI1549472, and Microsoft's Windows release health pages for a public entry and a resolving KB number. The next scheduled security release is the December 2026 Patch Tuesday. If you manage templates, start listing which generators embed watermarks or anchors so you can test them against a fix the day it appears. We will add a dated update to this article when Microsoft publishes one.

Sources

• The Register: Microsoft has an image problem with November's Windows security update (12 November 2026)
• How-To Geek: Word printing problems? Microsoft's November Windows updates are the likely cause
• Windows Forum: November 2026 Windows security updates can break printing of documents with invisible images
• BleepingComputer: Microsoft says November security updates cause printing issues (we could not open this page; it is listed as the report that first covered the alert, per search results)
• Microsoft: Windows 11, version 26H1 release health
• Microsoft: Windows 11, version 25H2 release health
• Microsoft: Windows Server 2025 release health
• Our earlier articles: Windows error 0x80041008: slmgr fails after November updates and KB5132061 and CVE-2026-124194: November 2026 Patch Tuesday