Sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that! PCs refuse to shut down after Microsoft patch

We're not saying Copilot has become sentient and decided it doesn't want to lose consciousness. But if it did, it would create Microsoft's January Patch Tuesday update, which has made it so that some PCs flat-out refuse to shut down or hibernate, no matter how many times you try.

In a notice on its Windows release health dashboard, Microsoft confirmed that some PCs running Windows 11 23H2 might fail to power down properly after installing the latest security updates. Instead of slipping into shutdown or hibernation, affected machines stay stubbornly awake, draining batteries and ignoring shutdown like they have a mind of their own and don't want to experience temporary non-existence.

The bug appears to be tied to Secure Launch, a security feature that uses virtualization-based protections to ensure only trusted components load during boot. On systems with Secure Launch enabled, attempts to shut down, restart, or hibernate after applying the January patches may fail to complete. From the user's perspective, everything looks normal - until the PC keeps running anyway, refusing to be denied life.

Microsoft says that entering the command "shutdown /s /t 0" at the command prompt will, in fact, force your PC to turn off, whether it wants to or not.

"Until this issue is resolved, please ensure you save all your work, and shut down when you are done working on your device to avoid the device running out of power instead of hibernating," Microsoft said.

The firm hasn't offered much in the way of technical detail, nor has it put numbers on how many devices are affected. There's also no fix yet, with Redmond vaguely promising to "release a resolution for this issue in a future update." But isn't that just what a sentient bot might say?

This isn't the only post-update gremlin lurking in January's Patch Tuesday bundle. Microsoft has also been forced to acknowledge a separate issue in which classic Outlook POP account profiles can hang or freeze after installing this month's patches, another reminder that while the bugs being fixed may be invisible, the ones introduced can be painfully obvious.

The notice is similarly vague, with Microsoft stating: "This is an emerging issue, and we don't have all the symptoms yet, but we will update the topic as we understand the issue better."

Patch Tuesday exists to close security holes, some of them serious, and skipping updates is rarely a great idea. But once again, a batch of fixes has arrived with side effects that range from irritating to disruptive, depending on how much you rely on your system behaving predictably when it's told to turn off.

For now, admins and long-suffering Windows users are left watching Microsoft's status pages and waiting for patches to the patches - hoping their machines eventually go to sleep. ®