The Windows 10 October 2018 Update (1809): Let's Try This Again
by Brett Howse on November 14, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Software
- Operating Systems
- Windows
- Microsoft
- Windows 10
Back on October 2nd, Microsoft announced general availability for the latest update to Windows 10, the Windows 10 October 2018 Update. The new naming is improved over what they’d been doing in the past, where updates were called Creators Update or Fall Creators Update, and hopefully this continues. As a version, this update is Windows 10 1809.
But of course, the October 2018 Update wasn’t really available in October after all, since shortly after it was released for users to install manually, several serious data loss bugs were discovered that had slipped through testing, and the update was then pulled. There’s been plenty of discussion online on how this happened, and why it’s happened, but regardless, it’s caused a rather sizeable delay in the actual rollout of this second update for 2018.
This is unfortunate on a number of levels, with the first being that these bugs were actually reported during the preview releases to the Windows Insider Program, but they weren’t actioned, and second, as Windows 10 has matured since it first came out in 2015, the hope has to be that with fewer major feature changes in each update, updates should be less intrusive and cause fewer issues, but clearly Microsoft is not quite there yet. They’ve made some changes to the Insider Program, but time will have to tell if that helps or not.
| Windows 10 Version History | |||||
| Version | Version Number | Release Date | |||
| Windows 10 Original Release | 1507 | July 29, 2015 | |||
| November Update | 1511 | November 10, 2015 | |||
| Anniversary Update | 1607 | August 2, 2016 | |||
| Creators Update | 1703 | April 5, 2017 | |||
| Fall Creators Update | 1709 | October 17, 2017 | |||
| April 2018 Update | 1803 | April 30, 2018 | |||
| October 2018 Update | 1809 | October 2, 2018 | |||
We’ve not heard of any changes to the current servicing model of two updates per year, although with both of the 2018 updates having major issues causing them to halt deployment, there’s still some concern over whether the current method is sustainable for Microsoft, and of course for the millions of business customers who have to test and maintain the OS in their companies.
But with the preamble out of the way, there are still quite a few new features for Windows 10 in the October 2018 Update which should make workflows a bit easier to manage, as well as plenty of smaller updates which we’ll go over as well. Microsoft has been focusing more on productivity features for Windows 10, which fits in well with where the operating system is most used, but they continue to improve security, privacy, and accessibility as well. Let’s dig into some of the new features coming with the Windows 10 October 2018 Update.
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haukionkannel - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
That is so true. But they can now play with this new toy and in two or three years from now, we may actually see ten or more games to use it! And after that some more...New trend has to be started one day. But early bird in this case may not to be the best place to bee. The second or third generation of ray tracing cards will be a heck of lot better in ray tracing than these and there will be more of them. Then we will have Nvidia, Intel and AMD competing the best ray tracing card title and also hopefully some price competition too!
Mr Perfect - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
That's true, but I'm still curious to see if Raytacing is worthwhile from a graphical point.That and if the RTX cards are crap at pumping out rays, then maybe the pricing will come back down to earth. So far the high prices are sort of justified by this big mythical feature that no one can verify.
Martijn ter Haar - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Yup. The Battlefield V is the first game where raytracing can be enabled, albeit only for reflections. There's still some bugs though. Hardware Unboxed has a video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpZmH0_1gWQhoutek - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
this OS has been buggy for decades. After spending three days on the phone with HP, and reinstalling Win 10 at least twice, i'm done. I had a high end HP laptop with a unreliable OS. I wiped the hard drive, installed Ubuntu Linux, immediately got $200 in refunds on Windows support utilities, never looked back.Spunjji - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
This OS hasn't been out for decades. Next troll, please.MonkeyPaw - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
Refunds for support utilities? What support utilities?PeachNCream - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
While I totally support your decision to switch to Linux and would encourage people that are interested in something other than Windows to give it a try, my experiences with Win10 haven't been like that. I use it at work on a daily basis with very few problems. I use Linux at home on a daily basis, also with very few problems. Every modern operating system will have bugs regardless of whether or not you go with something open or closed source. I've run into a variety of mostly minor issues Linux since picking up shop and moving to it so I'd hardly call it a perfect experience. Mint Tara, version 19 and the latest from the Mint team, has resolved some instability with Audacity I've been experiencing while making recordings for video production so I'm a pretty happy clam at the moment. I would argue that it runs neck-and-neck with 10 (or at least so close that there isn't a notable difference) in terms of reliability which is to say that both operating systems are quite usable and each has its own set of pros and cons.haukionkannel - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
Yep. I have has much less problems with win10 than I did have with win7. Win7 was quite nice at the end of its career, but all in all win 10 has been more stable operation system to me.On worst nitpick is that win10 has to keep so much legacy support in it that many setting are too numerous places (so that old programs can also work in it...) But stability has clearly been quite good. I did reinstall win 7 4-5 times. Win 10 I have not installed it again a single time. But it is all up how lucky you get with hardware vs firmware, vs software lottery that is quite excessive in windows machines.
Targon - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
Talking to clueless support reps in India or wherever that only read from a script and expecting THEM to be able to help you just shows you should have checked online first for help. Windows 10 has been fairly solid for over a year now, even with the bugs that only apply to .05 percent of the user base.The big 1809 problem was due to people who redirected Documents for example to point to another directory instead of c:\users\USERNAME\Documents. If you had set up a proper JUNCTION link in the filesystem to do the job, it wouldn't have been a problem as well.
Laitainion - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Given that redirection is redirection is the only method exposed via the gui and not working across hard discs/partitions I don't think that's entirely fair. I find it quite reasonable that Microsoft check the use-cases that they expose for people to use than expect people to use a method that isn't.