Windows 11 KB5072033 is now available for Windows 11 25H2 or 24H2, and it’s the last update for the year 2025, as Microsoft developers will be on holiday. This means fewer issues for everyone. Regardless, the update brings better dark mode support and some other fixes. Microsoft has posted direct download links for the KB5072033 offline installer.

KB5072033 is a mandatory December 2025 Patch Tuesday update, and it is titled “2025-12 Security Update (KB5072033) (26200.7462). In our tests, Windows Latest observed that the update automatically begins downloading when Windows periodically checks for updates.

This update advances Windows 11 25H2 to Build 26200.7462. In the case of Windows 11 24H2, it brings up Build 26100.7462. As I mentioned, there are quite a few noteworthy changes, particularly for gamers, as Microsoft has patched long-standing problems haunting AMD GPUs.

This update is still rolling out, so it won’t show up right away. Please wait until 10AM PT.

Although it’s a mandatory security release under the December 2025 Patch Tuesday, it won’t install immediately. You’ll be able to pause updates if you wish.

Download Links for Windows 11 KB5072033

Windows 11 KB5072033 Direct Download Links: 64-bit and ARM-64 | You should look for the December 2025 Patch Tuesday via Settings > Windows Update, but if that’s failing or is slow to download because the update is huge (1GB+), you can use Microsoft Update Catalog.

If you are going to use the Microsoft Update Catalog I linked above, make sure you download the correct version. You can verify Windows 11 OS version and architecture under Settings > System > About. I’ve extracted details of all Windows 11 builds, and their size:

What’s new in Windows 11 Build 26200.7462 (25H2) and 26100.7462 (24H2)

1. Search UI now matches the height of the Start menu

After installing the cumulative update, you will notice that Windows Search height matches the Start menu. Up until now, Search UI has been shorter than the Start menu. In fact, as the Start menu keeps growing in size, Search UI has relatively remained the same, and it’s finally getting fixed.

Here’s how the Start menu and Search UI looked when compared before I installed the December cumulative update:

And here’s what they look like after applying Windows 11 KB5072033:

2. Advanced Settings in Windows 11 now lets you manage everything

Windows 11 already has Advanced settings (previously called For Developers), but it was missing support for Virtual Workspaces. Up until now, Windows 11 has made it quite difficult to manage Virtual Workspaces like Sandbox and Hypervisor, as these features were offered in different areas, such as the Optional features in Control Panel.

For example, when I opened Virtual Workspaces, I noticed dozens of advanced options, most of which are intended for developers, as a casual user would not want to use the Hypervisor Platform on Windows 11. But there are some nice additions, such as Windows Sandbox. You can now easily turn on Sandbox from Settings.

Here’s a list of all features you can manage via Virtual Workspaces after installing Windows 11 KB5072033:

• Containers: When you enable this toggle, Windows runs “container” apps, like Docker.
• Guarded Host: This lets you create locked-down virtual machines that are harder to tamper with.
• Virtual Machine Platform: This enables the base needed for things like WSL2.
• Windows Hypervisor Platform: This lets you manage VMware, Android emulators, etc.
• Windows Sandbox: Previously, Sandbox was offered via the Optional features dialog in the Control Panel, but now you can manage it via Settings.

Other tools include Hyper-V GUI Management Tools, a Module for Windows PowerShell – PowerShell commands to script and automate Hyper-V virtual machines, and more.

3. All dialogs in File Explorer now use dark mode

Windows 11 KB5072033 finally turns on dark mode for all operational dialogs in Windows 11, but like every other feature in this release, it’s also being rolled out gradually. After the update, if you try to delete a large file or folder in File Explorer and Windows 11 is set to use dark mode, you’ll no longer see a light-themed pop-up for ‘Delete confirmation.’

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Likewise, if you’ve gigabytes of files in a drive and you try to copy and paste or copy and cut files in another drive, Windows typically triggers the ‘File transfer’ dialog. Up until now, this dialog has used a light theme with green colours, but now it’ll use a shade of blue, and the background will be dark.

Microsoft also has other colours, such as orange and red, when the file transfer is paused or the transfer fails. Looks neat, right? It’s one of my favourite features in Windows 11’s December update.

• Microsoft says it fixed an issue where File Explorer does not show thumbnails for videos.
• Also, if File Explorer accidentally triggered the toolbar in your Windows 11 installation, it was not just you. Microsoft says it found a bug in File Explorer that causes the toolbar to appear unexpectedly.
• The app icon that disappeared from the context menu has now been fixed for the “Open” command.

4. Windows 11 is now better for gamers

After installing Windows 11 KB5072033, users with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT confirmed has finally calmed down their constant GPU crashes. Games like Battlefield 6, Call of Duty Black Ops 7, and ARC Raiders stopped throwing “GPU hung” and “driver removed” errors after installing the update while using Adrenalin 25.11.1.

AMD’s driver notes still admit there are crashes and timeouts in several games and apps on Radeon hardware. Microsoft’s notes for the December 2025 Update only openly confirm a fix for a bug where supported GPUs were wrongly flagged as “unsupported,” which hints that Windows did touch the graphics stack but does not clearly link it to these AMD stability gains.

Outside the AMD drama, the month’s security update also fixes a few annoying Windows problems. One big one is a bug where explorer.exe could stop responding after certain notifications, which made the taskbar and Start menu vanish and reload.

Microsoft also says apps and games should stutter less on very high-resolution or high-refresh monitors during launch, and it has patched issues with brightness not sticking and games wrongly seeing your graphics card as unsupported.

On the flip side, the same build can cause white flashes in File Explorer when dark mode is on and can hide the password icon on the login screen.

If your AMD GPU is timing out all the time, installing Windows 11 KB5072033 and updating to Adrenalin 25.11.1 is worth trying, as long as you are fine living with a few cosmetic bugs.

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