January 'Patch Tuesday' updates now rolling out to Windows 10

Surface Laptop 2
Surface Laptop 2 (Image credit: Windows Central)

We've reached the second Tuesday of January, and that means it's time for another round of "Patch Tuesday" updates from Microsoft. The monthly cumulative updates are now rolling out for versions of Windows 10 from the October 2018 Update and older, bringing a number of fixes to the fore.

Here's a look at what's new for PCs on the October 2018 Update:

  • Addresses a security vulnerability in session isolation that affects PowerShell remote endpoints. By default, PowerShell remoting only works with administrator accounts, but can be configured to work with non-administrator accounts. Starting with this release, you cannot configure PowerShell remote endpoints to work with non-administrator accounts. When attempting to use a non-administrator account, the following error will appear:
  • "New-PSSession: [computerName] Connecting to remote server localhost failed with the following error message: The WSMan service could not launch a host process to process the given request. Make sure the WSMan provider host server and proxy are properly registered. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic."
  • Addresses an issue in which using esentutl /p to repair a corrupt Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) database results in a mostly empty database. The ESE database is corrupted and cannot be mounted.
  • Security updates to Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Windows App Platform and Frameworks, Windows MSXML, Windows Kernel, Windows Storage and Filesystems, Windows Wireless Networking, Microsoft JET Database Engine, Windows Linux, Windows Virtualization, and the Microsoft Scripting Engine.

The release notes are nearly identical across the April 2018 Update, Fall Creators Update, and Creators Update, covering the first, second, and fourth fixes listed above.

For more, you can check out Microsoft's full release notes. Otherwise, you can grab this month's updates now via Windows Update.

Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl