[German]Another short message to owners of machines with Windows 10 version 1903 (Home and Pro). Microsoft announced it is starting to forcefully upgrade these systems to Windows 10 version 1909.
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The background to this action is the impending end of support on December 8, 2020. On November 9, 2020, Microsoft therefore reminded the Windows Message Center of this end of support and at the same time announced that it would begin the forced upgrades to Windows 10 version 1909.
Reminder: End of service for Windows 10, version 1903 – December 8, 2020
On December 8, 2020, all editions of Windows 10, version 1903 and Windows 10 Server, version 1903 will reach end of service. After that date, devices running these editions will no longer receive monthly security and quality updates. To keep you protected and productive, we will soon begin updating devices running Windows 10, version 1903 to Windows 10, version 1909. This update will install like a monthly update, resulting in a far faster update experience.
It should be noted, however, that this forced upgrade only applies to Windows 10 Home and Pro, which are updated via Windows Update. For machines running Windows 10 Enterprise or Education that are updated via managed environments such as WSUS, SCCM, or Intune, the administrator has control when upgrading to a newer version of Windows 10.
Windows 10 version 1809, on the other hand, reaches the end of support on November 10, 2020 and receives its last updates. While researching for this blog post, I also noticed that Microsoft's Windows 10 Life Cycle page must have been revised by October and lists more small dates when support for a Windows 10 build will end. But you can find these dates on the Windows 10 version information page.
Microsoft had reserved and announced the possibility to switch Windows 10 builds to a new build a few months before the planned end of support and to eliminate user-set delays for feature upgrades (see also Windows 10: force upgrade to V1803 and EOL notification). Personally, I had expected this forced upgrade for Windows 10 version 1903 already in late summer. But Coronavirus may have postponed some things there.
No change to version 2004/20H2?
Surprising for many observers, however, is the fact that Microsoft announced, it will not update the systems to Windows 10 2004 (released in spring 2020) or Windows 10 20H2 (released in October 2020). With the 1809 version of Windows 10, Microsoft had changed the systems to Windows 10 2004 at the time without any consideration of losses (see Windows 10 V1809: Auto Update to Version 2004 has begun?). However, this change caused trouble at the time, as the 2004 version of Windows 10 still had numerous bugs. Also the just released Windows 10 20H2 suffers from some bugs that it shares with the 2004.
With the forced update from Windows 10 version 1903 to version 1909, Microsoft is probably taking the least risk. Once in the version 1903 most bugs are eliminated in the meantime. And the 1903 version can be updated to Windows 10 version 1909 by a few hundred kilobytes of Enablement Update. The Enablement Update only unlocks the features of Windows 10 version 1909 that were disabled in Windows 10 version 1903. Because both versions share not only the same code but also the same updates.
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Owners of Windows 10 Version 1909 Home and Premium will receive support with security updates until May 11, 2021, and for Windows 10 1909 Enterprise and Education until May 10, 2022. This trick practically gives Microsoft time to fix the bugs in Windows 10 version 2004 and 20H2 until May 2021. Only then the forced upgrade to the 2020 versions is necessary.
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