Delaying Feature Updates

Hi, I'm wondering if the OP will consider this option: Enable or Disable Windows Update Automatic Updates in Windows 10

dalchina said:

Hi, I'm wondering if deferring a feature update will actually work in the case of 1909 given the different mechanism of its delivery. Is anything known of this? Thanks.

That is a good question, but I think the answer will be 'yes'.

Past experience has shown that a lot more besides feature updates will be deferred it you set the 'Defer Feature Update' option.

For a long time it has been observed that not all Cumulative Updates are created equal. The Patch Tuesday 'B' release CUs will be downloaded and installed automatically, but the 'C/D' releases were not automatically found and installed, until recently you had to manually check for updates to find them. On the 21st May when 1903 was released, so were CUs for 1803/1809 that changed this behaviour. Now the 'C/D' release CUs are found, but listed with the optional 'Download and install now' link, just like a Feature Update.

Before this change there were a lot of posts asking 'why don't I get the latest CU?'. Invariably the CU concerned was a 'C/D' release and the OP had deferred feature updates. Here's one example of many.

The only logical conclusion is that, when MS wanted to make these 'C/D' release CUs optional to avoid forced reboots several times a month, the update servers only had an 'either/or' field to mark an update as a 'quality' or a 'feature' update. Rather than redesign the structure of the update sever database, they took the easy option of marking all optional updates as 'feature' even if they were just a normal cumulative update. And in consequence, defering Feature Updates will also defer all the optional Cumulative Updates.

So as 1909 its to be delivered more like a cumulative update, it's reasonable to assume that it should still be deferred by setting a number of days for 'Defer Feature Updates'.

dalchina said:

Thanks, sounds reasonable- provided MS marks it correctly..

Oh, they (almost) always mark it correctly......



....except for that one time towards the end of August (for about a week until the update servers got corrected) when 1809 machines were automatically updating to 1903 without their owners' consent. I confirmed that for myself at the time....

Bree said:

Up until now you could happily check for updates, safe in the knowledge that the 'download and install now' option for the Feature Update was completely separate from the Check for Updates function. But .... No longer does it appear separately as a 'download and install now' choice, that has gone. Now it is listed in amongst the 'pending' downloads. Your only choice is to download all or none.

how exactly does the notify before download option work

I suspect that was due to a 'slip of the finger' by someone on the update servers.

Matthew Wai said:

Hi, I'm wondering if the OP will consider this option: Enable or Disable Windows Update Automatic Updates in Windows 10

That looks interesting but I am always wary of 3rd party stuff especially in this area Do the posters here recommend it ?

Mikey99 said:

That looks interesting but I am always wary of 3rd party stuff especially in this area Do the posters here recommend it ?

3rd party stuff very rarely gets put into a tutorial. Brink will only do that if he considers it is safe to use.

In case the OP does not know Brink, he is the administrator of TenForums.