Surprise, Microsoft changed the behavior of Windows Update for the best in Windows 10 1903

Since the release of Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system in 2015, patch updates and patches were at the heart of Microsoft's critical reviews by administrators and advanced users. This was not the only argument advanced against Windows 10, telemetry was another, but it was a major argument.

Lack of control over updates and quality issues have caused a lot of damage since then. Microsoft releases cumulative updates once a month on the second Tuesday of the month. The company is releasing a second cumulative update that serves as an overview of upcoming events in the same month.

While Windows 10 offered options for delaying updates, it did so in a haphazard manner, depending on the edition and version of Windows 10. It did not really help that Microsoft changed the update to Windows 10. over the years; and all of this has been confirmed in a study recently.

The emphasis on cumulative updates also meant that administrators could no longer install updates selectively; it was an all or nothing approach. Microsoft has released special security updates only for Windows 7 and 8.1, but not for Windows 10.

Imagine the following scenario: You click the Check for Updates button in an earlier version of Windows 10. You might get:

• An overview of the update automatically installed on the system.
• An update to a new version of Windows 10 installed automatically.

But even if you avoid the Check for Updates button like the plague, you will eventually get feature updates on the system you have little control over. This could lead to all kinds of problems, from deleted programs to applications and reset settings, to the introduction of serious problems that sometimes take months to correct.

One of the best options was to block Windows updates and install updates after careful selection only; This allowed administrators to recover some of the lost control in Windows 10, but at the cost of wasting time looking for updates and possibly fixing security issues later.

The release of Windows 10 version 1903 changed that, and this time for the better. While there is still room for improvement, it appears that the cumulative update and new feature update preview versions are no longer automatically installed when you click the Check for Updates button.

Instead, they are listed under "optional updates available" in Windows updates. This means that you can use the button again to manually check for updates without worrying about updating an unstable update or a new feature update on the system.

Updates can not be avoided indefinitely with the built-in options. Microsoft will send updates to the Windows 10 versions that are about to be depleted, and cumulative updates can only be delayed for a certain period of time.

Closing words

I still think that there is still a lot to do. I would like to see an option that lists all available updates so that I can choose which ones I want to install on the system. This is wishful thinking, but exactly how third-party update tools such as Windows Update Minitool or Sledgehammer work.

Now, it's your turn: What is your vision of development?

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