It looks like error messages will be more helpful in the upcoming Windows 10 April 2019 Update, at least when installing Windows 10 and its major updates.
If you’ve spent any time with Windows 10, you’ve probably encountered an error message when something goes wrong, such as an app – or Windows 10 itself – crashing and becoming unresponsive.
Not only are error messages annoying, most are unhelpful, simply telling you something went wrong, and occasionally pointing to a Knowledge Base article (but not linking to it) or offering a string of incomprehensible numbers and letters. Not very helpful if you want to find out what went wrong and how to fix it.
Now, as Ars Technica discovered, the Windows 10 April 2019 Update (also known as 19H1) will display error messages that not only tell you something went wrong, but offer suggestions on how to fix it.
Offering solutions, not just problems
By offering solutions, rather than just telling users that there’s an error along with a load of unhelpful jargon, these messages should hopefully make Windows 10 less confusing and frustrating to use.
When a problem is encountered, users should see options to try to fix it, as well as a ‘Learn more’ link that will take people to the relevant Knowledge Base article, rather than leaving people to search for it themselves.
In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be any need for error messages, but the reality is you'll likely encounter them at some point, so Microsoft’s moves to make them more useful is definitely welcome.
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