January 14, 2025—KB5049981 (OS Builds 19044.5371 and 19045.5371) - EXPIRED

Following the installation of the October 2024 security update, some customers report that the OpenSSH (Open Secure Shell) service fails to start, preventing SSH connections. The service fails with no detailed logging, and manual intervention is required to run the sshd.exe process.

This issue is affecting both enterprise, IOT, and education customers, with a limited number of devices impacted. Microsoft is investigating whether consumer customers using Home or Pro editions of Windows are affected. 

This issue is addressed in KB5052077.

Devices that have certain Citrix components installed might be unable to complete installation of the January 2025 Windows security update. This issue was observed on devices with Citrix Session Recording Agent (SRA) version 2411. The 2411 version of this application was released in December 2024.
 
Affected devices might initially download and apply the January 2025 Windows security update correctly, such as via the Windows Update page in Settings. However, when restarting the device to complete the update installation, an error message with text similar to “Something didn’t go as planned. No need to worry – undoing changes” appears. The device will then revert to the Windows updates previously present on the device. 
 
This issue likely affects a limited number of organizations as version 2411 of the SRA application is a new version. Home users are not expected to be affected by this issue. 

The issue has been resolved in Citrix Session Recording Agent version 2503, released on April 28, 2025, and newer versions.

For details, see the documentation provided by Citrix at "Microsoft's January Security Update Fails/Reverts on a machine with 2411 Session Recording Agent".

The Windows Event Viewer might display an error related to SgrmBroker.exe, on devices that have installed Windows updates released January 14, 2025, or later. This error can be found under Windows Logs > System as Event 7023, with text similar to ‘The System Guard Runtime Monitor Broker service terminated with the following error: %%3489660935’. 

This error is only observable if the Windows Event Viewer is monitored closely. It is otherwise silent and does not appear as a dialog box or notification. 

SgrmBroker.exe refers to the System Guard Runtime Monitor Broker Service. This service was originally created for Microsoft Defender, but it has not been a part of its operation for a very long time. Although Windows updates released January 14, 2025, conflict with the initialization of this service, no impact to performance or functionality should be observed. There is no change to the security level of a device resulting from this issue. This service has already been disabled in other supported versions of Windows, and SgrmBroker.exe presently serves no purpose.

Note: There is no need to manually start this service or configure it in any way (doing so might trigger errors unnecessarily). Future Windows updates will adjust the components used by this service and SgrmBroker.exe. For this reason, please do not attempt to manually uninstall or remove this service or its components. 

This issue is addressed in KB5055612.

After installing this security update, you might experience issues with USB audio devices. You are more likely to experience this issue if you are using a USB 1.0 audio driver based DAC (Digital to Analog converter) in your audio setup. This issue might cause USB audio devices to stop working, preventing audio playback.

DACs (Digital-to-Analog Converters) are commonly used in scenarios where users need to improve the quality of their audio systems. A few scenarios where they are used are home audio systems, professional music studios and portable music players.

Resulting from this issue, the Device Manager might display the error ‘This device cannot start. (Code 10) Insufficient system resources exist to complete the API’.

This issue is addressed in KB5050081.

After installing this security update, you might experience issues with USB cameras. Your device might not recognize the camera is on.

This issue is addressed in KB5050081.