Windows 10’s next big update (19H2) is now being finalized, Microsoft has announced, and the firm has christened the upgrade as the November 2019 Update.
Brandon LeBlanc, senior program manager of the Windows Insider Program, noted that he believes version 18363.418 – which has already been deployed to the Release Preview ring for testers – is the final build which is ready for release to the general Windows 10-using public at large.
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LeBlanc noted that after release, “we will continue to improve the overall experience of 19H2 on customers’ PCs as part of our normal servicing cadence.”
Let’s hope it’s nothing like the ‘overall experience’ we’ve become accustomed to with the servicing of the current May 2019 Update. As that mainly involves a sinking feeling as to what potential new bug might be introduced when yet another cumulative update is released to cure a problem caused by a previous issue-solving update. Which in turn was caused by the solution to another bug. Introduced by a cumulative update before that. And so on…
As you’ve likely already heard, the November 2019 Update is a relatively minor upgrade with no new features – it’s more about under-the-hood improvements, although there are some nifty bits and pieces like the promise of improved battery longevity for laptops with certain CPUs.
Fun with build numbers
Going forward, both the May 2019 Update and the November 2019 Update will receive the exact same cumulative updates.
LeBlanc explains: “For customers who were given the option to install 19H2, an enablement package is downloaded from Windows Update that turns on the November 2019 Update features. This changes the build number for the OS from Build 18362 to Build 18363.”
Future updates will therefore have the same version number after the dot, so those on May 2019 Update will have build 18362.418, while those on November 2019 Update will be running build 18363.418.
LeBlanc reminds us that Windows 10 testers in the slow ring will now be moved to the 20H1 update, so if you want to stay with the November 2019 Update, you should switch to the Release Preview ring.
As to when the November 2019 Update will actually be released, given this blog post having been made and the fact that the final preparations are now underway, we’d assume it will be pretty soon.
So presumably we’re looking at an October release, and yet, oddly enough, the upgrade isn’t called the October 2019 Update – we wonder why that is?
We suspect that the phrase ‘October Update’ has become Microsoft’s equivalent of ‘The Scottish Play’, a month never to be used, or indeed ever uttered again in the halls of the Redmond-based software giant, lest it brings a file-deleting disaster of some kind crashing down on the heads of innocent and unsuspecting Windows 10 users.
Well, it’s a theory anyway…
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