Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   In the last week I've experienced some glitches that I want to mention so you can watch out for this stuff...

   Trying to install the 2nd June cumulative update for win10 1809, Windows Update wasn't writing to disk, with RAM usage growing instead -- shut win10 down when RAM use reached 4 GB, and when restarted it worked normally.

   If/when you click to check for updates, win10 will tell you either the new version, 1903 is available to download, or tell you that your device isn't ready yet. In the latter case it has a link to learn more, which is useless -- just takes you to the list of problems Microsoft knows about, but not which one is preventing the 1903 upgrade. After installing the 2nd June 1809 cumulative update, Windows Update changed the message from couldn't install to could. I don't know for sure if that was because Windows Update screwed up the 1st time, or if that update fixed a problem, or if they're adding fixes to the 1903 setup that are not listed on their web site. The 2nd option, that a fix was included in the 2nd June update, is *probably* the reason, since it included: "Addresses an issue with evaluating the compatibility status of the Windows ecosystem to help ensure application and device compatibility for all updates to Windows", but since I don't know for sure why it was refused, can't say 100% what the fix was.

   I allowed my wife's 2-in-1 to download & install win10 1903 via Windows Update. That worked normally for my son's PC, but on the 2-in-1 I gave up & turned it off when after 4+ hours it had just reached 93% [it was 2:00 AM]. Next morning I had it resume the setup, which started at 25%, but finished in a couple of hours. That's still messed up though -- I copied the setup files from the win10 ISO to the hard drive on the mini PC, which is less powerful than the 2-in-1, and the upgrade took roughly an hour.

   Posted 5 years ago #
2. 

   Tiffany
   Member

   I don't even know why they brought 1903 out. Should have been scrapped and started again. I belong to the Windows Insider Program and heard so many faults and fixes with this upgrade. In the end they were saying they were rolling it out bit by bit and waiting for people to let them know what went wrong. I didn't have any of the said problems, lucky I don't know but there is no known problems on my computer. My laptop was however another matter. 4+ hours to update plus a top up the next day. When you thought it was stuck it was in fact updating, just very slow. When I thought it was all okay, last night it decided to give me a screen with different colours. WTF....a restart sorted it out.

   Posted 5 years ago #
3. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   My only *Real* problem installing the 1903 upgrade was on one of my tablets -- it wouldn't work with the setup files on a USB stick, but the compatibility check only happens if you're using Windows Update, so I didn't find out it wouldn't work until the upgrade was almost completed. The fix for that problem had already been released, but it wasn't until a day later that I found out Microsoft hadn't released the hold [they still haven't]. :( I just restored a backup -- I'll try again when they announce the hold's been removed.

   You're right about them rolling 1903 out slowly. They're just starting to build the AI system that will determine what devices running earlier builds than 1809 will get the 1903 upgrade. Their release info page is vague about an issue where: "Gamma ramps, color profiles, and night light settings do not apply in some cases", and they list another problem with Intel display drivers -- hopefully you won't have any more problems with the laptop, but if it reoccurs, hopefully they'll have a fix soon.

   Strictly my personal opinion, I think Microsoft wants 1903 to become as stable & problem free as possible, because the fall version upgrade will be more like a larger cumulative update than a complete new version. But they're in Absolutely No Hurry to get there -- to get 1903 fixed or prepare the next version. It wasn't until March this year that Microsoft said last fall's version [1809] was stable enough for business use, so maybe around September or so they'll get 1903 properly fixed. In effect I think that the Insiders are more like Alpha testers, with individual users doing Beta testing.

   With few if any new features -- they haven't even talked about the next version that's less than 6 months away -- this fall's version should be pretty stable from the start. I think that Microsoft feels that without new stuff [features] to play with, likely fewer people will want to run this coming build, so they're not even trying -- normally Insiders would have had it for at least a couple of months by now.

   This is all so that they can have most of their win10 development resources working on next year's update, which is mainly targeted to all their cloud stuff, and the cloud is what heavily influences their stock price, which determines their bonuses [never mind that their Windows biz generates huge amounts of money for Microsoft]. Once that gets done their focus will be on their game streaming service, their Windows developers will likely get reshuffled again, and then things with win10 will get back to whatever passes for the new normal.

   Posted 5 years ago #
4. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   Reading what I just wrote about individual win10 users doing Microsoft's Beta testing, it occurred to me that the logical question someone reading that would have is: "Why did I upgrade to win10 1903?". "Why didn't I wait until say next September?" So I sat and thought about that...

   In the past I'd upgrade win10 versions as soon as possible because I knew if I didn't, Microsoft would ram it down my throat anyway, and usually at the most inconvenient time possible. Put simply, I wanted that control. But that doesn't apply anymore, as the only people who are going to be forced to upgrade are those running a win10 release that's 18 months old. SO after thinking about it a bit, I came to the conclusion that what I actually like about upgrading win10 versions is the reduced size and complexity of a new Windows install that hasn't been patched extensively [yet].

   As example, I have 2 VMs, one running Windows 7, and one that runs the win10 upgrade from that same Windows 7 VM. There's no difference between the two regarding the software installed. Both are on optimized dynamically expanding VHDs, meaning as little of the VHD file is devoted to free disk space as possible -- the size of the VHD file reflects the total size of all the actual files on that VHD. The win7 VHD is just shy of 32 GB -- after the 1903 upgrade the win10 VHD was 14.5 GB.

   Less complexity from less patching **may** **Hopefully** mean fewer problems. The smaller footprint OTOH means less time spent copying backup archives to 2ndary storage. Keeping win10's footprint small as possible by installing a new version, getting rid of some accumulated garbage, saves me time.

   Posted 5 years ago #

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