Windows 10 October 2018 Update Rollout Resumes, Says Microsoft

After a delay of more than a month, Microsoft has finally begun rolling out Windows 10 October 2018 Update, after being hit by bugs that caused the company to pull the update offline.

To recall, Microsoft had pulled the Windows 10 October 2018 Update after reports the update was deleting data of users. It later restarted the rollout of a patched version to Windows 10 Insider Preview members, and is only now re-releasing the update starting with commercial customers from Tuesday, November 13.

Microsoft has promised significant changes in the way it approaches quality issues, including better communication with its users. According to the tech giant, the "data destroying" bug that delayed the release of the so called October 2018 Update has been thoroughly investigated.

In a blog post, Microsoft's John Cable, Director of Program Management, Windows Servicing and Delivery, said, "While the April Update had the fastest Windows 10 update rollout velocity, we are taking a more measured approach with the October Update, slowing our rollout to more carefully study device health data. We will offer the October Update to users via Windows Update when data shows your device is ready and you will have a great experience. If we detect that your device may have an issue, such as an application incompatibility, we will not install the update until that issue is resolved, even if you 'Check for updates', so you avoid encountering any known problems. For those advanced users seeking to install the update early by manually using 'Check for updates' in settings, know that we are slowly throttling up this availability, while we carefully monitor data and feedback."

Apart from the data destroying bug, several other bugs popped up. These include a ZIP file bug that was related to extracting/ pasting files from a ZIP archive when using the native Windows File Explorer tool. If a user tries to extract or paste a file (let's say, gadgets360.jpg) from inside a ZIP archive into another folder containing another file with the same name (gadgets360.jpg), they will not be given an overwrite prompt. Instead, the destination folder file's modified date changes, but the file is not replaced at all.

There was also a bug in the patch for those computers that had managed to install the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, that was causing BSOD on HP workstations and computers.

Written with inputs from IANS