Take Control of your Windows updates

Who says Microsoft don’t listen?

As you are no doubt aware Microsoft Windows 10 has had mandatory OS updates where not only do you have no control over when this update will happen it sometimes “breaks” your computer, well not any more. Microsoft is changing the way Windows Updates downloads and installs releases so giving the user more control.

Currently Microsoft offers a mixture of updates for Windows 10 including feature updates, 2 per annum, monthly updates and security patches and it was last Octobers feature update that caused so many issues Microsoft had to pause its rollout.

Whilst users of Windows Professional where able to exert some control using the defer upgrades option Home users never had this feature.
In a blog post announcing the change, Mike Fortin, Corporate Vice President Windows acknowledged that the mandatory update process isn’t for everyone:

We have heard clear feedback that the Windows update process itself can be disruptive, particularly that Windows users would like more control over when updates happen.

What does this mean going forward? Well from the May 2019 update Windows will treat feature updates differently from monthly and security updates.
Feature updates will now include a “download and install now” function where users can choose if and when to get the update. Well at least until the device being used nears end of support. At that time Windows 10 will install it for them.

Similarly monthly updates now have an option where the user can defer the update for 7 days and this can be done up to five times so a max of 35 days in total.
Its not quite a throwback to previous versions of Windows where users could choose which updates to install but with the increased focus on security it’s a welcome transfer of some control back to the user.