Windows 10 will no longer auto install feature updates twice a year

Microsoft has announced that starting with the Windows 10 May 2022 Update, users volition no longer be forced to install new Windows 10 feature updates every bit they become bachelor. This comes after feedback from users who accept 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 meliorate than information technology was at launch in 2022, it's however 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" push button will now just function for security and monthly patches. Feature updates now go their own area in Windows Update where the user can initiate the download and install process for the latest characteristic update bachelor. If the user doesn't desire to initiate that process, they don't have to. The user will exist alerted that a new feature update is bachelor every now then, but at no bespeak will the user exist forced to install that update, equally long equally the version of Windows 10 they're currently running is nonetheless in back up.

Related: The divergence betwixt 'feature updates' and 'quality updates'

That terminal part is central. Users can't remain on an quondam version of Windows 10 forever. Microsoft says that it will automatically install the latest characteristic update when the version of Windows 10 the user is currently running reaches end of back up. For consumers, a feature update is in support for around eighteen months. So, for example, assuming Microsoft releases two characteristic updates a yr, users running Windows ten version 1809 can opt to not install version 1903, version 1909, and version 2003 before version 1809 runs out of support and Microsoft automatically installs the latest version available, which would likely exist version 2009 at the fourth dimension.

Microsoft's Corporate Vice President for Windows, Mike Fortin, said the following:

Beginning with the Windows 10 May 2022 Update [version 1903], users will exist more in control of initiating the feature OS update. We will provide notification that an update is available and recommended based on our data, only it will be largely upward to the user to initiate when the update occurs. When Windows 10 devices are at, or will shortly attain, finish of service, Windows update will keep to automatically initiate a feature update; keeping machines supported and receiving monthly updates is critical to device security and ecosystem health.

This is an unprecedented change for Microsoft in the era of "Windows as a Service," which has attempted to keep everyone up to date with the latest version of Windows 10. Users will now be able to skip entire releases if they decide they don't desire it. Of class, security and monthly patches volition however be downloaded and installed automatically, but the user is able to pause those updates for up to 35 days if needed. Windows 10 should no longer forcefully restart itself unless you've delayed updates for a very, very long time.

These changes to Windows Update should delight many users who take go frustrated with Windows 10'southward forceful update nature. Microsoft is giving back control to the user, allowing them to choose for themselves when a feature update should exist installed on their PC, at least for 18 months.

What are your thoughts on these changes? Let us know in the comments.

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