Windows 10 March 2023 Patch Tuesday (KB5023696) out — here's what's new and what's broke

Patch Tuesday Windows 10

It's the second Tuesday of the month, which means it's Patch Tuesday time again. As such, today Microsoft is rolling out the monthly security update (also called "B release") for March 2023 on Windows Server 20H2, and Windows 10 for the latest versions, 21H1, 21H2, and 22H2. The new updates are being distributed under KB5023696, bumping up the builds to 19042.2728, 19044.2728, and 19045.2728. You can find standalone links to download the new update on Microsoft Update Catalog at this link here.

The major highlight of the release as usual is security updates for Windows 10.

Highlights

This update addresses security issues for your Windows operating system.

And as is generally the case, the Redmond company has also listed the known issues in the update, which is always handy. Here are the symptoms and their respective workarounds:

Symptoms	Workaround
Devices with Windows installations created from custom offline media or custom ISO image might have Microsoft Edge Legacy removed by this update, but not automatically replaced by the new Microsoft Edge. This issue is only encountered when custom offline media or ISO images are created by slipstreaming this update into the image without having first installed the standalone servicing stack update (SSU) released March 29, 2021 or later. Note Devices that connect directly to Windows Update to receive updates are not affected. This includes devices using Windows Update for Business. Any device connecting to Windows Update should always receive the latest versions of the SSU and latest cumulative update (LCU) without any extra steps.	To avoid this issue, be sure to first slipstream the SSU released March 29, 2021 or later into the custom offline media or ISO image before slipstreaming the LCU. To do this with the combined SSU and LCU packages now used for Windows 10, version 20H2 and Windows 10, version 2004, you will need to extract the SSU from the combined package. Use the following steps to extract the SSU: Extract the cab from the msu via this command line (using the package for KB5000842 as an example): expand Windows10.0-KB5000842-x64.msu /f:Windows10.0-KB5000842-x64.cab Extract the SSU from the previously extracted cab via this command line: expand Windows10.0-KB5000842-x64.cab /f:* You will then have the SSU cab, in this example named SSU-19041.903-x64.cab. Slipstream this file into your offline image first, then the LCU. If you have already encountered this issue by installing the OS using affected custom media, you can mitigate it by directly installing the new Microsoft Edge. If you need to broadly deploy the new Microsoft Edge for business, see Download and deploy Microsoft Edge for business.

Symptoms

Workaround

Devices with Windows installations created from custom offline media or custom ISO image might have Microsoft Edge Legacy removed by this update, but not automatically replaced by the new Microsoft Edge. This issue is only encountered when custom offline media or ISO images are created by slipstreaming this update into the image without having first installed the standalone servicing stack update (SSU) released March 29, 2021 or later.

Note Devices that connect directly to Windows Update to receive updates are not affected. This includes devices using Windows Update for Business. Any device connecting to Windows Update should always receive the latest versions of the SSU and latest cumulative update (LCU) without any extra steps.

To avoid this issue, be sure to first slipstream the SSU released March 29, 2021 or later into the custom offline media or ISO image before slipstreaming the LCU. To do this with the combined SSU and LCU packages now used for Windows 10, version 20H2 and Windows 10, version 2004, you will need to extract the SSU from the combined package. Use the following steps to extract the SSU:

Extract the cab from the msu via this command line (using the package for KB5000842 as an example): expand Windows10.0-KB5000842-x64.msu /f:Windows10.0-KB5000842-x64.cab
Extract the SSU from the previously extracted cab via this command line: expand Windows10.0-KB5000842-x64.cab /f:*
You will then have the SSU cab, in this example named SSU-19041.903-x64.cab. Slipstream this file into your offline image first, then the LCU.

If you have already encountered this issue by installing the OS using affected custom media, you can mitigate it by directly installing the new Microsoft Edge. If you need to broadly deploy the new Microsoft Edge for business, see Download and deploy Microsoft Edge for business.

Some of the older Windows 10 versions have also received updates today which have been listed below with their respective release notes (KB) linked as well as links to download them at Microsoft's Update Catalog:

Version	KB	Build	Download	Support
1809	KB5023702	17763.4131	Update Catalog	Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC)
1607	KB5023697	14393.5786	Update Catalog
1507	KB5023713	10240.19747	Update Catalog

It is noteworthy here that Windows 10 20H2 and Windows 10 1909 reached the end of servicing. The Windows Server 2016 changelog is the same as Windows 10 version 1607.