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Windows 10 Will No Longer Auto Install Feature Updates Twice a Year (windowscentral.com)
Microsoft has announced that starting with the Windows 10 May 2019 Update, which will hit general availability late next month, users will no longer be forced to install new Windows 10 feature updates as they become available. From a report: This comes after feedback from users who have had countless issues with updates breaking programs, losing files, and installing at inconvenient times. Microsoft has been working hard to improve Windows Update, and while the system is better than it was at launch in 2015, it's still not perfect. Now, users will have the option to not have to deal with feature updates when they are released.
What Microsoft is doing here is splitting Windows Update in two. The normal "check for updates" button will now only function for security and monthly patches. Feature updates now get their own area in Windows Update where the user can initiate the download and install process for the latest feature update available. If the user doesn't want to initiate that process, they don't have to. The user will be alerted that a new feature update is available every now and then, but at no point will the user be forced to install that update, as long as the version of Windows 10 they're currently running is still in support.
What Microsoft is doing here is splitting Windows Update in two. The normal "check for updates" button will now only function for security and monthly patches. Feature updates now get their own area in Windows Update where the user can initiate the download and install process for the latest feature update available. If the user doesn't want to initiate that process, they don't have to. The user will be alerted that a new feature update is available every now and then, but at no point will the user be forced to install that update, as long as the version of Windows 10 they're currently running is still in support.
"Still in support" is the key line, but they don't have to change any other policies to make this hurt. This was already changed a while back so the Spring (H1) feature updates only have 18 months of support and Fall (H2) feature updates only have 24 months of support.
So the best you can do is update to the latest in Fall, where you won't be bugged again for two years... and at that point, if you skip the intervening updates and go straight to latest, you get two more years. If you don't want the current Fall update, you'll be bugged again much sooner.
while the customers have been pushing back that they didn’t want these features
Huh? As far as I can tell customers have only ever wanted to be in control of updates and wanted their system to be stable. Who are these strange customers you apparently know that actively don't want the features that come out in the updates?