Microsoft to throw Windows 10 Home users an Automatic Update bone

[The AchieVer]

Windows 10 can download and install updates automatically when they are available. Although users are supposed to keep their desktop OS up-to-date, sometimes we might have good reason to delay an update.

For example, your favourite application is incompatible with the update and you want the download to take only when the developer has addressed the compatibility issues. The major updates can also break functionalities or apps and if you’d prefer to wait until the bugs are squashed, you can delay the updates.

 

In Windows 10 Pro, Education and Enterprise edition, Microsoft allows users to delay the updates directly from the Settings app. You can delay the update by tweaking the settings found under Update & Security > Windows Update > Advanced Options > Choose when updates are installed.

This setting basically allows users and businesses to delay the updates until they’re sure everything works. Another quickest way to delay the update is to turn on the Pause Updates and delay the update for 35 days.

Unfortunately, you won’t find the above options if you’re using Windows 10 Home. In Windows 10 Home, you can delay the update by telling the system that you’re you’re using a metered connection but this trick may not work in long run.

This behaviour is about to change as the software giant is working on a new feature which can delay the updates for up to seven days.

 

Much of the issue regular PC users have with Windows Updates is that they happen automatically, specifically causing an automatic restart or delaying reboot when they actually want to use their PCs to do something productive.

Microsoft lets their core market, enterprise users, control this issue somewhat by delaying automatic updates for up to 35 days.

Now in the latest 19H1 Insider build of Windows 10 Microsoft is extending some of this largesse to regular Windows 10 Home users, letting them pause updates for up to 7 days.

The setting can be found under Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and can be seen in the screenshot above.

Unfortunately, I don’t think a setting hidden so deep in the OS  will go very far in giving Windows 10 Home users a feeling of control over their operating system. I suspect nothing less than returning to the nag system of Windows 7, where the OS informs users of a pending update and lets them agree to the installation when it is convenient would do the trick.

 

 

source

[Karlston]

A good move superficially, but Microsoft's strategy has always been for Windows 10 Home users to be its unpaid beta testers.

 

So, how can Microsoft improve its Windows 10 update "quality" by decreasing the number of unpaid beta testers?

 

Update quality improvements must come from inside Microsoft, before the release of updates. Current strategy is just to throw updates at users and see what breaks.