Microsoft to Pause Optional Windows 10 Updates Starting May 2020

Microsoft announced today that the company will be pausing all optional Windows 10 updates starting this May.

With more people working from home, it’s imperative that their Windows devices continue to be reliable, and so Microsoft is pausing optional Windows updates to make sure any future updates do not affect users.

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The move is slightly odd, though. Microsoft will continue to deliver Patch Tuesday updates, and so it will only be pausing the optional updates (known as the C and D releases, with B being Patch Tuesday). The move also comes into effect in May, which is still quite far away, and the coronavirus outbreak could get much better in the meantime.

“We have been evaluating the public health situation, and we understand this is impacting our customers. In response to these challenges we are prioritizing our focus on security updates,” said Microsoft. The move affects all supported versions of Windows and Windows Server products.

Microsoft says the company is prioritizing its focus on security updates, so hopefully the upcoming Patch Tuesday updates won’t break anything for Windows users. Delivering security updates is important for Microsoft, but I feel like it would be a much better and safer option to simply pause all updates until this crisis is over.

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Conversation 13 comments

  • hrlngrv

    Premium Member
    24 March, 2020 - 5:02 pm

    <p>All it took was a once-a-century global pandemic to get MSFT to do the right thing.</p>

  • Greg Green

    24 March, 2020 - 5:03 pm

    <p>“<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">With more people working from home, it’s imperative that their Windows devices continue to be reliable”</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">So it’s not imperative when we’re working at work? I get that most homes don’t have an IT staff, but still…this is the important point that MS seems to have deprecated since Win 10.</span></p>

  • Vladimir Carli

    Premium Member
    24 March, 2020 - 5:24 pm

    <p>so they admit that frequent updates make a computer unreliable… interesting</p>

  • Philip

    Premium Member
    24 March, 2020 - 6:28 pm

    <p>About "<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">&nbsp;Delivering security updates is important for Microsoft, but I feel like it would be a much better and safer option to simply pause all updates until this crisis is over.</span>"</p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(49, 50, 51);">Hard to do that when your earlier article today said "attackers are exploiting a previously undisclosed vulnerability in Windows, affects Windows 10 users as well"</span></p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      25 March, 2020 - 5:07 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#533628">In reply to PhilByPond:</a></em></blockquote><p>Exactly. The bad guys aren't in lockdown – or if they are, they are using the extra time they are not at their day-job to redouble their efforts, because it is much more fun than watching re-runs of last season's football games…</p>

  • crunchyfrog

    24 March, 2020 - 6:31 pm

    <p>In other words: "The wheels have come off the wagon and we're heading off a cliff so we've decided to let our customers jump off before they would otherwise meet their end."</p>

  • lvthunder

    Premium Member
    24 March, 2020 - 6:34 pm

    <p>Hopefully we are back at work by May.</p>

  • anoldamigauser

    Premium Member
    24 March, 2020 - 6:36 pm

    <p>Where does this leave Windows 10 2004?</p>

  • Alastair Cooper

    24 March, 2020 - 6:39 pm

    <p>It's not going to be over by May. What seems to be happening here is that they are planning to cut back roughly when the outbreak peaks. At that point a lot of their staff will be off sick so they won't have the same resources to put into new features.</p><p><br></p><p>The other thing is that this seems to give them a window to finalise and make available the new 2004 release which is due out before then.</p>

    • mikes_infl

      25 March, 2020 - 1:13 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#533632"><em>In reply to Alastair_Cooper:</em></a><em> </em> That's got to be a typo, right – or a joke? ( new 2004 release ) it's hard to tell without extra characters/emojis, etc, but it is sooo Microsoft. ;-)</blockquote><p><br></p>

  • harmjr

    Premium Member
    25 March, 2020 - 12:32 am

    <p>Good time/excuse to switch to once a year feature updates. Blame it on virus…</p>

  • reefer

    25 March, 2020 - 4:20 am

    <p>Oh, this is hillarous. They actuallty admitting that their updates causes more bad than good.</p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    25 March, 2020 - 5:05 am

    <p>Our government seems to be looking at closures until at least June at the moment.</p><p>Funny that they aren't stopping them for April… We got a roll-up this morning for 1903 and 1909, but it is mainly small stuff, like appointment entries not showing properly in the taskbar calendar; we don't use that anyway. The only one that might affect us is a print to shared folder bug, but that will affect a very small number of users.</p>

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