FAQ: How should I Manage Windows 10 Updates?

Introduction:- If you've spent years mastering the ins and outs of Windows Update, prepare to do some unlearning. Windows 10, with its emphasis on "Windows as a service," keeps rewriting the rules of updates and upgrades. Here's what you need to know. [via @ZDNet]

With Windows 10, Microsoft has completely rewritten the Windows Update rule book. For expert users and IT pros accustomed to having fine-grained control over the update process, these changes might seem wrenching and even draconian.

You can't pick and choose which updates to install? There's no option to delay updates on PCs running Windows 10 Home? Upgrades to new versions are mandatory?

Welcome to Windows as a service.

The new update rules are designed to solve some nagging problems in the PC ecosystem. For example, if every user can choose some updates and reject others, the number of potential configurations approaches infinity; Microsoft argues that all those untested variations make effective quality assurance much more difficult.

Likewise, Microsoft's generous 10-year support lifecycle has enabled fragmentation in the installed base: Over the past decade, Microsoft's engineering staff have been required to support as many as five major versions at the same time. In a world where security challenges arrive at breakneck speed, that stretches support resources to the breaking point.

And thus a new approach to Windows Update, whose goals are to have the majority of Windows users fully patched at all times, with only a few versions to support and an installed base that is mostly running one of the two most recent versions. But pushback from frustrated customers has resulted in some major adjustments in 2018 and 2019.

This FAQ covers the details you need to know, especially if you're the administrator in an unmanaged environment.

WHAT KIND OF UPDATES ARE AVAILABLE FOR WINDOWS 10?

Microsoft provides two types of update packages for Windows 10:

• Feature updates are the equivalent of what used to be called version upgrades. They include new features and require a multi-gigabyte download and a full setup. Each version update gets a major version number that corresponds to its date of release, in the yymm format, as well as a build number that identifies it. Version 1709, for example, was finalized in September 2017 and is identified as build 16299. Microsoft's schedule is to deliver Windows 10 feature updates twice a year.
• Quality updates address security and reliability issues and do not include new features. These updates are cumulative, and they increment the minor version number after the major version number. The January 2018 cumulative update for version 1709, for example, is 16299.192. Even if you skip several months' worth of updates, you can install the latest cumulative update and you will be completely up to date.

All available security and reliability updates are included in a cumulative update and cannot be selected or rejected individually. That's a major change from previous versions and a big surprise to anyone upgrading to Windows 10 for the first time.

Besides these cumulative updates, you might see servicing stack updates delivered separately. These update packages fix issues in the code that Windows 10 uses to scan for and process updates. Security updates for Adobe Flash Player and definition updates for Windows Defender are also delivered as separate packages, not included in cumulative updates.

Hardware drivers and firmware updates can be delivered through Windows Update. Typically, these packages are provided only when the driver fixes a bug that causes instability on targeted systems.

HOW ARE UPDATES DELIVERED IN WINDOWS 10?

For consumers and small businesses, both quality and feature updates are delivered via Windows Update. Organizations can use internal update management solutions, such as Windows Server Update Services, to distribute updates to computers on a corporate network.

Feature updates are made available to business and home editions of Windows at the same time. (Until 2019, there were separate servicing channels, also called branches, for home and business customers. For details about this change, see "Windows 10: Has Microsoft cleaned up its update mess? (Spoiler: no)")

Because of the enormous number of machines that receive Windows updates, Microsoft "throttles" update delivery to manage the load on its servers. As a result, it may take weeks or even months for a feature update to roll out to all of the hundreds of millions of devices in each servicing channel.

Quality updates are delivered at the same time to all supported branches. These cumulative updates arrive on the second Tuesday of each month, or Patch Tuesday, as it's widely known. (Microsoft officials refers to this day as Update Tuesday.)

Microsoft may deliver additional updates throughout the month, including cumulative updates and servicing stack updates. So-called out-of-band patches to address critical security issues may appear at any time, generally in response to reports that a Windows flaw is being actively exploited.

WHY ARE SOME CUMULATIVE UPDATES LISTED AS OPTIONAL?

As noted earlier, Microsoft releases cumulative updates on the second Tuesday of each month. This is called the "B" release. During the third and fourth week of each month, you might see "C" and "D" releases. These cumulative updates represent previews of the following month's "B" release, and they contain only non-security fixes.

According to Microsoft, the "C" and "D" releases are "intended to provide visibility and testing" of those fixes for IT pros and enterprise administrators.

These preview releases are not installed automatically. They are visible only if you go to the Windows Update page in Settings and manually check for updates. The only way to install one of these optional updates is to click the Download And Install Now link below its entry, as shown here:

If you leave the Windows Update page without installing that update, nothing happens. The optional update disappears the following month, when it's replaced by the regular Patch Tuesday update.

HOW CAN I TELL WHICH UPDATES ARE INSTALLED?

See the list under Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > View Installed Update History. The list is divided into three groups: Quality Updates, Driver Updates, and Other Updates. Click the entry for any update to see further details about that update, if they're available.

HOW DO I KNOW WHETHER MY SYSTEM IS UP TO DATE?

Follow this link for instructions on how to identify the build installed on your device and compare it to the master list of Windows 10 updates:

Windows 10 tip: Find and decode secret version details

To review an up-to-the-minute list of updates for all currently supported Windows 10 versions, see the official Windows 10 Update History page.

WHEN DOES WINDOWS 10 INSTALL UPDATES?

Windows 10 downloads cumulative updates in the background and installs them automatically. As noted earlier, optional updates released in the "C" and "D" weeks are not installed automatically. In addition, as of version 1903, feature updates are also not installed automatically unless the current device is approaching its end-of-support date.

Using options on the Windows Update page in Settings, you can specify Active Hours (a block of up to 18 continuous hours) when you don't want to be interrupted by these installations. In theory, that prevents a large update from interfering with your workday activities, although the strategy fails if you shut your device down at the end of the day and don't restart until the next day.

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