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.

Comments

Still in support

[TheCastro1689]

So they'll more quickly remove support for older versions to force updates?

Re:Still in support

[ElizabethGreene]

So they'll more quickly remove support for older versions to force updates?

They've done the opposite, if you've been paying attention. They extended support for 1607-1809 and made the support period longer for the fall releases on a go forward basis.

BTW, this patch Tuesday is the last patch for 1607 Enterprise/EDU. If you haven't upgraded, you need to ASAP or move to LTSC.

Re: Still in support

[cayenne8]

How about they change and allow the user FULL control over what updates they do or do not want?

Re: Still in support

[sinij]

How about they change and allow the user FULL control over what updates they do or do not want?

Who do you think you are to demand this? Do you think you own your personal computer and software on it or something?

Re:Still in support

[DrStrangluv]

"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.

Re:Still in support

[DrStrangluv]

This is after they shortened it.

Windows releases used to be good for **10 YEARS** (mainstream plus extended). IMO, this was one their few big advantages in the server market over linux options, where even LTS linux distros only tend to be good for 3 or 4 without forced updates.

  Now, even in the best case, you only get two years, and that's after they extended Fall (H2) releases up from just 18 months.

Re:Still in support

[CharlesAKAChuck]

I want to be in charge of my own security, I want to know what's being installed, I want to control when it's installed, and I damn sure want to control when my machine is going to reboot. However, I'm an IT professional. My mother, on the other hand, is doing well to turn the computer on, and I want her updates to be automatic without any intervention. Those two scenarios are not at complete odds with each other-if Microsoft would just set the default to automatic updates and give us the option to only run updates when the user checks for updates. In manual update mode, I'd even be just fine with Windows checking for updates automatically and notifying me if there are some, but don't install them until I say so and definitely do not reboot until I say so. Just the option of 'Notify but don't install until the user intentionally tells the updates to install' would make practically everyone here happy, and a default mode of 'Check for them, download them, and install them when they're available without having to bother the user' would keep the non techies happy.

Re:Still in support

[squiggleslash]

Nobody's complaining Microsoft makes available updates. They're complaining that the update process is:

1. Mandatory, and usually starts when you least want it to happen
2. Often unreliable, frequently leaving the computer in an unstable state
3. Requires reboots almost all the time (by comparison only a kernel update requires a reboot with GNU/Linux distributions, and it's rare anyone needs to update the kernel)
4. Requires all updates be installed, the user can't choose to install only genuinely urgent updates
5. Even if (4) were fixed, the updates are poorly documented, with it being unclear what the fixes are.

Finally

[DarkRookie2]

You don't get a thank you thou.
You still deserve a kick in the privates for even doing the auto install in the first place. And Win 10 in general.

It took how long?

[UnknowingFool]

It seems like it’s been a cat and mouse game with MS on Windows. MS has been trying to force “features” on their customers while the customers have been pushing back that they didn’t want these features especially since it seemed they were beta-testing them for MS.

Re:It took how long?

[thegarbz]

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?

Re:It took how long?

[UnknowingFool]

Customers want patches and security fixes. What they don’t and didn’t sign up for was to be beta-testers for MS for “features” that could break their systems. MS has been heavily criticized for classifying updates that are not patches or fixes as “essential” or “critical”. Some of these features do not appear to be tested extensively as they did indeed break systems. For example the Ms Store and telemetry were marked as critical when they were not. But at least they didn’t break systems.

Re:The sheer incompetence of MS is staggering

[sinij]

My guess that it was attempt to cut costs on MS part. If nearly everyone is on the same version you no longer need to devote massive resources to test every possible combination prior to releasing.

Re:The sheer incompetence of MS is staggering

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunno but I kind of theorize that they had some sort of massive talent exodus circa 2005. EVERY product since then has been a half-assed unnecessary recreation of a previous reasonably hardened product. And every one of the new products seems to get abandoned before being fully completed, in favor of more rewrites.

Windows 2000 (to some extent XP) and Office 2003 were badass, and did everything their modern counterparts do on comparably minuscule amounts of RAM and CPU.

Vista was so-so, 7 kinda stabilized it, but it still ran worse than 2000. Then they threw that shell out for 8, kinda fixed it in 8.1, then threw that out for 10... Office got revamped with '07 (badly) and then messed with again in 2012. And the weirdest thing is that none of the rewrites goes all the way - there's always some remnant of the old product if you dig - take Windows control panels for example: 10 has those stupid material-design-looking ones, but they only implement maybe 15% of the control panel - once you run out of them you get dumped back in the Windows 7 control panel. But that only implemented maybe 85% of the control panel, and when you run out of those you get dumped back into the 2000 control panels (which were reasonably complete).

Don't get me started on the new Win10 Calculator, which has a noticable startup time and looks like shit, or the Windows Photo Viewer which takes longer and longer to open a JPG with every release, and is currently around 8 seconds on my machine for a 24MP file (meanwhile Irfanview opens almost anything instantly). And Windows Photo Viewer has next to no functionality!

And they threw Windows Mobile under the bus and let Apple take over the cellphone market, before releasing a me-too Windows Phone (making most people's perception that they were late to the smartphone game rather than one of its innovators). Now even that is circling the drain.

I think maybe the xbox 360 was designed before this happened, because that was fairly solid. Can't say the same for the One though.

I'm almost done with them. If I can every get Adobe Creative Suite for Linux I think I'd drop them and never look back.

Re:Modularity

[DarkRookie2]

Fuck the Store. They try to position is as a safe way to download and install software. Its no better than downloading anything off the internet.

Re: precursor to charging for new features

[cyber-vandal]

How about: they both suck for different reasons.