Will you upgrade to Windows 10 v1803 straight away?

by Mark Townsend
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06 May, 2018
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Can you avoid it?

The latest version of Windows 10 is now here and you have three choices of name by which to refer to it. It is the Spring Creators update, V1803 or Redstone 4 depending on which you fancy. It started rolling out on 30th April and I carried out my first installation this week. I didn't experience any problems myself but certain problems are already widely reported including issues with Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. If you're a conspiracy theorist who avoids Microsoft Edge and have noticed the regular pop-ups telling you how better Edge is then you won't be surprised there are issues with other browsers. There have also been other freezing issues which appear to be related to drivers and an issue with Reddit. Microsoft claim the first patches will be available on May 8th, so some of the early issues should be fixed.

Of course the early adopters are doing Microsoft's testing for them and as problems are always expected I recommend avoiding new releases in the early days but can you? If you have Windows 10 Professional you can choose a Business setting that delays the update for around 4 months and this allows all the Home users to test it, find the faults and then allows Microsoft to fix them before releasing it to Businesses. A previous article by me covers how to change your settings to the Business setting if you have Windows 10 Professional. If you have Windows 10 Home it's in the lap of the god's when you will receive the update. You can get it quicker by downloading it directly from Microsoft but you can't really delay it when it arrives so you will become a tester for Microsoft. There are a couple of tweaks you can do to attempt to delay it and again these are covered in a previous article by me.

If you want more hints and tips you might want to join my Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1760436304008404 or if you already have an issue just give me a shout on mark@churchdowncomputers.co.uk or 07557 483438. You can also fill out the form on the Contact page.

During my installation the first thing I noticed was that after installation and before login you get asked a huge number of questions. I wish I had counted them but they went on and on and on...... I got really fed up in the end and I'll be going through this several times a week rather than just once like the average customer. The other thing I noticed is what is supposed be an added security feature when adding a new user account. Those that have worked with me will know that I always add a second account which digs you out of a hole if you only have one account and it becomes corrupted. To create this account you now have to choose three security questions from a set of 6 and the options are the same each time. As somebody who creates a second account by default I'm now going to have to choose three questions and then answers and then communicate them to the customer rather than just a username and password as I do now. The problem is that if I choose "pets name" and Banjo but they actually have a pet called Fido then you can imagine the confusion three years down the line when they can't find the answers I have given to the questions. The only option will be to work with them on the second account but this is yet another task when returning the PC, the customer gets frustrated because they don't really want two accounts anyway and getting the answers can easily take 15 - 30 minutes on top of the work you have already done.

Let's hope that Microsoft resolve the early issues fairly quickly!!

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