1809 Users Missing Critical Fixes
OK, let’s start today’s blog post with an assumption. Let’s assume that you actually succeeded in installing the 1809 release on one or more PCs. This must have occurred during the 3-day period between release on Tuesday October 2 and Friday October 5. That’s when MS withdrew the release from circulation upon discovery of a data loss bug related to OneDrive and User folder contents. I myself successfully installed 1809 on 4 PCs here at Chez Tittel. These included my production desktop, both Lenovo laptops, and my wife’s mini-ITX desktop PC. Imagine my horror and consternation when I saw a HowToGeek story last Friday. It’s entitled “Millions of PCs Running Windows 10’s October Update Haven’t Received Critical Fixes.” That’s right: 1809 users missing critical fixes is the way things stand for those who did achieve the upgrade. What’s up with that?
What Does 109 Users Missing Critical Fixes Mean?
According to the HowToGeek story’s lead paragraph this is the situation:
Microsoft has spent that last month frantically fixing bugs in Windows 10’s October 2018 Update. But, if you’re one of the millions of people who installed the update when it was available, you haven’t actually been getting those bug-fix updates!
HowToGeek turns to another Friday ZDNet news story from Ed Bott to obtain this news, and to describe a fix. The story is “Windows-as-a-service fail: Microsoft keeps customers in the dark.” Here’s the net-net, straight from Mr. Bott himself:
Microsoft says all of those issues were fixed in cumulative updates that were released on October 16 and October 20, respectively. But if you were one of the enthusiastic souls who downloaded and installed version 1809 in the first week that it was available, you have not received those updates. To get the fixes for what are undeniably serious bugs in a version of Windows 10 that was released through public channels, you have to add your device to the Windows Insider Program and choose the Slow or Release Preview Ring.
Mr. Bott goes onto observe that it’s “not right” that 1809 users must sign up for Insider Preview access to fix an OS released to production. FWIW, I agree. He also opines that MS hasn’t been doing anywhere near an optimal or even acceptable job of communicating with Win10 users about bugs, fixes, and open issues. I concur with that, too. But fortunately the fix for this issue is pretty easy.
Implementing the Fix for 1809 Users
Assuming that some readers, like me, did upgrade one or more machines to 1809 already, here’s a relevant screen cap that shows the proper Insider Preview settings to open WU to deliver you those missing updates:
This level of sign-up won’t queue you up for additional Insider Preview upgrades. It only signs you up for updates and fixes to your current OS level at the preview level.
You do have to restart your PC to put this setting in effect. After I did this, KB4464455 showed up, ready for installation (and another restart) on my PCs. [Note: KB4464455 is NOT available through the Update Catalog, either.] Interestingly, the PC restarted twice while installing the update. The first time it didn’t show the spinning balls and the “Installing updates” message prior to the restart; the second time it did. There’s something interesting involved in climbing into the Insider Preview program for updates only, apparently.