The company says a previous update caused the whole thing

Oct 19, 2021 07:04 GMT  ·  By

While all eyes are on Windows 11 these days, it doesn’t necessarily mean Microsoft has forgotten about Windows 10.

In fact, the company even recommends users whose devices aren’t eligible for the upgrade to Windows 11 to just stick with Windows 10 until October 2025 when the support of this OS comes to an end, so releasing updates and resolving issues in the meantime is pretty much the only way to go.

Most recently, Microsoft resolved an issue causing smart card authentication problems when attempting to connect to a system using Remote Desktop, with the company explaining the whole thing was introduced by Windows 10 cumulative update KB5005611.

“After installing KB5005611 or later updates, when connecting to devices in an untrusted domain using Remote Desktop, connections might fail to authenticate when using smart card authentication. You might receive the prompt, "Your credentials did not work. The credentials that were used to connect to [device name] did not work. Please enter new credentials." and "The login attempt failed" in red,” Microsoft explains.

Hitting both stable Windows 10 and Windows Server versions

According to the company, the same issue existed on all recent stable versions of Windows 10, including not only version 21H1, but also version 20H2 and 2004.

The good news is the patch isn’t delivered as part of a new cumulative update but with what Microsoft calls a Known Issue Rollback approach that allows the resolution to easily be enabled on affected the device.

In other words, there’s nothing you need to do on your computer to have the issue resolved, as the fix is automatically enabled on your computer. Microsoft, however, emphasizes that it’s critical for IT admins to verify they are using the correct Group Policy for the version of Windows installed on their workstations.