Windows 11 Cumulative Update 2025-10 breaks localhost applications (opens in new tab)

(learn.microsoft.com)

177 pointsmarksamman8mo ago22 comments

22 comments

20 comments · 7 top-level

d3Xt3r8mo ago· 6 in thread

Windows keeps becoming more and more worse and bloated every month. This month's update bumped up the install.wim by 400MB! And last month's update added a similar amount of bulk. It's insane how much junk Microsoft keeps adding to the OS, whilst breaking core functionality.

pjmlp8mo ago

Agreed, yet I don't see people rushing out to buy GNU/Linux powered laptops at Media Markt, because there aren't any.

npteljes8mo ago

People can take, and do take a lot. A lot of actual abuse is happening in relationships, from corporations, politicians, pollution from the environment, and so on. And change always seems HARD, and very uncomfortable. So, people tolerate.

And that's why you don't see many GNU/Linux offerings around - if there was a real market, corporations would adapt in a heartbeat. For example, Steam Deck is estimated to be sold 4-5M items, Chromebooks upwards from 20M. If there is a market gap where people actually want the thing, it will sell.

Another factor is of course Microsoft's business strategy. They are pushing Windows hardcore, so it would take a lot to disrupt the desktop space. Even now, but it would have been even harder between 2000-2020.

tmtvl8mo ago

And it's very odd. You can find Microsoft and Apple laptops in many stores, but for GNU/Linux you basically have to go to speciality shops. Now, obviously, MS isn't going to be doing the whole 'if you don't sell non-Windows machines we'll give you a better deal' malarkey any more because they've learned that the court will bring the hammer down with a righteous fury when MS does that kind of anti-competitive nonsense (just remember the whole bundled browser saga), so it's weird.

I suppose it could just be the vicious cycle of 'no GNU/Linux laptops in stores' -> 'people don't know about GNU/Linux laptops' -> 'there's no demand' -> 'no GNU/Linux laptops in stores'. A problem which can only be solved by people in the know informing the general public (informing the public is always better than merely voting with one's wallet because multiple wallets > one wallet).

2 more replies

ectospheno8mo ago

A Dell Latitude 3550 works on OpenBSD without issue. I feel certain it must support Linux.

rurban8mo ago

Even worse than macOS, which also became almost unusable over the last years.

ronsor8mo ago

Every time they add new things to the OS, the old functionality is crushed under the weight of the new.

dehugger8mo ago· 5 in thread

I'm shocked there's not more traction on this post. Breaking localhost is almost unthinkable to me. Of all the things network unit testing should cover, that's pretty close to the top.

sidewndr468mo ago

I imagine Microsoft expects everything to be done in the cloud using AI, so localhost is considered deprecated now.

AnonymousPlanet8mo ago

In that case localhost is their competition.

17186274408mo ago

If you the loopback address doesn't work how can every other address work, that builds on top of this.

nebula88048mo ago

They probably have ChatGPT running their test suite or some nonsense like that now.

eddie_catflap8mo ago

Same. The incident calls I'm on this morning agree too

rappatic8mo ago· 2 in thread

How does an operating system even function without localhost? This is absurd I can't believe this was caught by even a single one of the 5,000 devs working on Windows.

ziml778mo ago

It's not localhost that's broken, it's a specific mechanism of using the OS HTTP libraries to bind a service (possibly even limited to HTTP/2 ones) to localhost. Which is still a crazy bug to ship with but a much different problem from localhost being blanket broken.

gloosx8mo ago

there are just 50 100x devs now working on Windows

WarOnPrivacy8mo ago

Link at bottom has some results about sudden, recent localhost failures

    working for several years, today localhost not found
    after GUI reboot attempt

    localhost and 127.0.0.1 should be the same, 
    it seems strange they shows different results.

    wusa /uninstall /kb:5066835 (restart)
    wusa /uninstall /kb:5066131 (restart)
    wusa /uninstall /kb:5065789 (restart)

ref: https://kagi.com/search?q=windows+localhost+not+working&dr=2...

mrandish8mo ago

Windows 11 has been a failure technically and as a product concept - and I say this as a multi-decade daily end user and general fan of the Windows OS technology. Before Win11, every version of Windows generally got better in meaningful ways. Sure, there were occasionally some odd ideas tried but they'd get dropped in fairly short order. And of course there were bugs as is inevitable with any commercial product this big, serving this many disparate user types across such a wide hardware footprint. But for the most part, Windows improved over time and users felt like MSFT was at least trying to do the right thing, even when they stumbled.

But things feel very different with Windows 11. Microsoft now removes useful features like task bar Quick Launch folders, even though millions of customers used them. Why? Because they 'distract' from the 'Start Menu Experience (tm)' which MSFT now views as a Primary Monetization Surface. Most of the user-visible changes happening in Windows 11 aren't about improving user workflows but instead are focused on increasing MSFT's ability to upsell, cross-promote and drive adoption of monetizable features. This isn't some short-term UX fad that'll pass in a year or two. It's a fundamental shift in the entire Windows business. The purpose of Windows is no longer first and foremost improving the OS to be more useful, powerful, complete, efficient and bug-free. As a user, it felt like there was still some focus on being a state-of-the-art Operating System, that values like technical correctness and orthogonal completeness were at least debated. The priorities now seem to be: 1. Enabling new monetization vectors, 2. Reducing and streamlining the OS to be cheaper to maintain with a smaller, less skilled staff, 3. See #1 and #2.

sebbu8mo ago

It seems like it only concerns IIS (and/or SChannel), and only for HTTP/2 (and maybe 3?). I use apache and openssl and doesn't have any issue.

usui8mo ago

I'm more interested in how this update causes the issue. What is the mechanism?

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