Is Microsoft Finally Letting Windows 10 Home Users Defer Updates? (Premium)

Microsoft has been using Windows 10 Home users as guinea pigs for its Windows as a Service (WaaS) scheme by not allowing them to defer any updates. But in Windows 10 19H1, we’ve seen evidence that this could be changing. And in the very latest build, suddenly, it appears that Microsoft could actually allow Windows 10 Home users the same update deferrable abilities that have always been enjoyed by those with Windows 10 Pro.

Cross your fingers, folks. This one is not certain at all.

WaaS is perhaps the most controversial aspect of Windows 10, though I will allow arguments from those more offended by the bundled crapware and advertising. But WaaS is frustrating on a number of levels.  We’ve seen the update frequency jump from a routine once-per-month, Patch Tuesday-type system to one where Microsoft more typically ships updates 2-3 times per month, on a largely random schedule, and most of these additional updates also require PC reboots, just like the normal monthly updates. Even worse, Microsoft provides Windows 10 Home users with absolutely no way to delay this torrent of updates. When an update arrives on Windows 10 Home, it will be installed.

This isn’t the case with Windows 10 Pro (or Education, or Enterprise). In these systems, Microsoft provides users with the ability to choose when updates are installed. Feature updates, which are really full version upgrades (like moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8) can be deferred for up to one year. And quality updates—which include both those scheduled monthly updates and the suddenly arbitrary other updates we seem to get regularly now—can be deferred for 30 days.

That situation has pretty much been the case since Windows 10 first shipped almost four years ago, in mid-2015. Windows 10 Pro users get to choose when updates are installed. And Windows 10 Home users do not.

I have long complained about the unfairness of this system, because it means that average users can’t benefit from the routine delaying of updates that, quite frankly, could cause instability and problems. That Windows 10 Home users are guinea pigs, on the front lines for making sure that the quality of Microsoft updates is good enough for those lucky enough to use Windows 10 Pro and smart enough to defer them.

But that could be changing.

Back in January, I noticed that a Windows 10 Insider Preview build for 19H1, running on a Windows 10 Home-based PC, added a new option to the Windows Update page in Settings. It was suddenly possible, even in Windows 10 Home, to defer updates for 7 days.

Now, 7 days isn’t much. It’s not enough time to know for sure that any given update is stable and reliable enough for the masses to install. But it is also much, much better than nothing. And a step in the right direction. I cheered this minor victory for what it was.

But this week, we received a new Windows 10 Insider Preview build for 19H1 that was most notable for the addition of an Android screen mirroring feature in the Your Phone app. Installing the build, I noticed that that 7-day deferral thing was still there, check. But the ability to defer Feature updates for a year and quality updates for a month was missing on my Windows 10 Pro-based systems for some reason. Obviously a glitch, I thought/hoped.

But a user on Reddit did a clean install of this build with Windows 10 Home and noticed something new: He can now defer updates for 35 days.

35 days.

Now, that is reasonable. That does address my four-year-old complaint that Windows 10 Home users have no effective way of delaying update installs. Microsoft, maybe, is fixing what I think is the single biggest issue with Windows 10.

Halleluiah?

Maybe. The issue is that this may or may not be really happening. My Windows 10 Pro systems have lost their ability to defer updates, after all. Maybe it’s a mistake due to a change that was aimed only at Windows 10 Home. Or maybe it’s just all a mistake, and Windows 10 19H1 will ship with no way to defer updates on Windows 10 Home, or with just a 7-day deferral.

There’s just no way to know for sure right now. So we’re kind of hanging in the balance hoping—OK, praying—that Microsoft will finally do the right thing here. And Microsoft will not confirm what it’s doing.

“The Windows Insider Program was created to enable Microsoft to test different features and functionality, which will influence future versions of Windows,” a Microsoft statement provided to Mary Jo Foley notes. “Microsoft regularly test new features and changes to existing features to see what resonates well with fans.”

Microsoft, listen up.

Giving all Windows 10 users the ability to defer updates will resonate with fans. But more important, it will resonate, and immediately benefit, all Windows 10 users. Forget about the fans. Just do the right thing for everybody. Please.