Each month, the team at Readiness analyzes the latest Patch Tuesday updates from Microsoft and provides detailed, actionable testing guidance. This guidance is based on assessing a large application portfolio and a comprehensive analysis of the Microsoft patches and their potential impact on Windows platforms and application deployments covering the following areas:
- RDP connectivity and session reliability.
- Printing and document workflow resilience.
- Network throughput and proxy behavior validation.
- UI and GPU rendering stability within Hyper-V environments.
Core OS and System Validation
Readiness recommends that testing teams begin by validating the foundational elements of the Windows platform. Ensuring smooth startup, account management, and policy operations helps catch regressions early and prevents cascading test failures downstream:
- Test basic boot, login, and Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC) policy enforcement.
- Validate administrative tasks such as user creation, group management, and policy refresh.
- Confirm stability during restart, shutdown, and update rollback scenarios.
- Run targeted tests of BitLocker recovery and drive encryption workflows.
As part of this testing effort Microsoft Windows desktop system-level policies, encryption, and authentication behave as expected before you layer on higher‑level functionality testing.
Remote Desktop and Network Connectivity
We recommend validating session reliability, reconnection performance, and the behavior of dependent services for hybrid and distributed environments that includes:
- Perform end-to-end RDP sessions between clients and servers. Copy files between sessions, redirect local printers and USB devices and disconnect and reconnect sessions to verify state persistence.
- Confirm VPN connectivity using multiple tunneling and authentication methods.
- Open browsers, connect repeatedly to multiple sites, and transfer large files to validate stability over TCP/IP.
- Test SMB loopback connections using UNC paths and validate proxy configurations when switching between corporate and guest networks.
- Validate client-side printing from Remote Desktop Services sessions.
Your testing should generate stable connectivity sessions under changing conditions, with stateful RDP and VPN sessions and predictable proxy behavior.
Printing and Document Workflows
Testing teams should prioritize both client‑ and server‑side printing services, with emphasis on high‑concurrency and recovery scenarios such as:
- Multiple (large) print jobs through the Print Workflow Service.
- Cancel jobs mid-process and observe recovery.
- Restart the service during active printing to ensure no deadlocks or orphaned tasks.
Critical core printing functions were updated this month, so crashes and blue-screens may be “on the menu” with this October update. I hope not.
Networking and Bluetooth Interoperability
Network stacks and wireless connectivity remain central to mobility testing. Teams should prioritize interoperability, speed, and reconnection behaviors for both wired and wireless scenarios such as:
- Conduct file‑transfer tests over IPv6 and measure throughput under variable latency.
- Perform a Bluetooth file transfer.
- Exercise packet send/receive flows using browsers, messaging apps, and file uploads.
- Test Bluetooth pairing and switching between multiple devices.
- Observe media playback and disconnect/reconnect transitions for smoothness and stability.
- Verify Nearby Share for varied file sizes and formats.
Stable file transfers (including Nearby Share and Bluetooth), consistent device switching, and reliable wireless throughput across mixed environments.
Storage and Filesystem Operations
Prioritize validating data integrity and access control through stress testing of file systems and storage pools.
- Perform NTFS read/write tests including rename, delete, and copy.
- Execute permission changes using GetSecurityInfo and SetSecurityInfo.
- Test ReFS deduplication scheduling through PowerShell.
- Simulate storage expansion with Storage Spaces Direct (S2D).
Consistent read/write access and reliable storage virtualization behavior during expansion and scheduled deduplication.
Graphics and User Interface Rendering
We recommend validating visual consistency and GPU acceleration in both native and virtualized environments.
- Verify apps using DirectComposition and the DWM API render correctly under theme changes.
- Change themes and wallpapers while apps run to test live refresh.
- Confirm GPU-accelerated Hyper-V VM sessions remain stable with display remoting enabled.
Stable rendering and error‑free theme transitions across both physical and virtual environments.
Security and Identity Validation
Testing teams should verify identity handoffs, certificate management, and logging accuracy.
- Test token-based sign-ins through Microsoft Entra ID and legacy NTLM fallbacks.
- Verify certificate generation and key management via BCrypt and NCrypt.
- Confirm proper logging and access-denied events in Windows Event Viewer.
Try testing out credential exchanges, cryptographic functions, and ensure that audit events operate consistently across updated builds.
