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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jordanclock - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
The biggest concern our sysadmins had with WSL is that as they understand it, they cannot restrict what we install under WSL. WSL has many limitations on what programs can do, but it does open up a huge library of software that sysadmins cannot properly vet.MonkeyPaw - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
I was going to comment about the same thing. Video ads are obnoxious, especially when you think you’re pausing it, only to load a new tab for the advertiser. Some sites won’t let you scroll until you stop them. If sites don’t want us using adblockers, they should dump these type of ads right away.PeachNCream - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
Disabling javascript or selectively blocking it with something like NoScript can also shut down those sorts of videos. Unfortunately, we have to get rather creative to block or otherwise defeat a large quantity of invasive and frustrating advertising content in order to obtain a small amount of useful information from the Internet.Gigaplex - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Disabling Javascript disables too much of the modern web.PeachNCream - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
That's why NoScript is nice because you can selectively enable it based on the origin domain and decide for yourself whether to do so on a temporary per session or full-time basis.TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
We have been telling that to website and advertisers for years, we blocked your ads because your ads were annoying and malicious. Their response was to make ads WORSE over time.PeachNCream - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Honestly, I would block them either way at this point. Anandtech was one of the last few sites I didn't block, but after the auto-play video mess, it's painfully obvious that Purch or whatever other random company owns the site couldn't care less so now I don't either.leexgx - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
when i have adblock off anandtech site is nearly unrecognizable (scam ads between the article and chat section and them silly anandtech video ads in between the article)mkozakewich - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
I've been using a Windows accessibility theme, High Contrast, for the last year. It's actually been pretty good! Most web pages are still intelligible, even if they haven't directly been designed for this.I've customized my colours, obviously, so I have a faded golden text and reddish borders instead of all those high-saturation colours.
tommo1982 - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
Hell froze. If someone said it 10 years ago I'd think he's insane.