News

Windows 10 Version 1809 Rollout Resumes (Again)

• By Kurt Mackie
• 01/18/2019

The general rollout of the Windows 10 version 1809 upgrade, also known as the "October 2018 Update," resumed again on Wednesday, alongside the rereleases of upgrades to Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server version 1809 (the "semiannual channel" version).

Microsoft noted the rereleases on its "Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019 Update History" page, which now includes more descriptive information about Microsoft's OS releases, including when Microsoft may be blocking a release due to software flaws, bad drivers or application incompatibility issues.

Wednesday's rollout constitutes the second rerelease of Windows 10 version 1809. Microsoft first released it on Oct. 2. Later, Microsoft pulled that release due to data loss issues, and then rereleased it on Nov. 13.

Microsoft is now resuming Windows 10 version 1809 releases in "phased rollouts," and the new OS also will arrive to "seekers." A so-called seeker is someone who simply uses the "Check for Updates" capability that's built into Windows interface, which will trigger an automatic download of the new OS, even if it's unwanted.

Even though Jan. 16 is the most current release date of Windows 10 version 1809, organizations using it will still have their update cycle clocks tuned by Microsoft to the previous Nov. 13 release date, Microsoft previously explained. It's an important planning detail for organizations, since Windows 10 needs to be upgraded after either 18 months or 30 months, depending on the Windows edition used and whether the release was a fall channel release or not.

According to the history page, there are still blocks in place for Windows 10 version 1809 for some systems, namely systems that have the following dependencies:

• Intel display drivers versions 24.20.100.6344 and 24.20.100.6345.
• F5 VPN clients that use a split-tunnel configuration.
• Trend Micro's OfficeScan and Worry-Free Business Security software.
• AMD Radeon HD2000 and HD4000 series graphics processing units.

Those blocks were still in effect from back in December. Microsoft uses its "telemetry" data gathered from systems to assess whether they are ready to receive a new Windows OS upgrade or not. Blocks get set when potential upgrade problems are detected.

Woody Leonhard, a longtime Windows patch observer and Computerworld writer, advised caution in a blog post about permitting Windows 10 version 1809 upgrades to occur, even though Microsoft has spent about three months addressing its problems. Consumer users of the Home edition, though, won't have easy options to block its arrival.

After problems with the release of Windows 10 version 1809 had become apparent back in November, Microsoft had announced plans to be more transparent about Windows 10 servicing and quality issues. The history page now appears to serve that function.

Microsoft has added a link in the history page to get feeds, which can be used in RSS readers to determine when this page gets updated. Clicking that link leads to this page, which gives the user an option to get the feed in either Atom or RSS formats. At press time, though, the RSS feed option for Windows 10 didn't have any effect, so it's apparently a work in progress.