Is Microsoft making an effort to improve update transparency and quality?

Microsoft was never particularly good when it came to update transparency and communication; while you could say that for a lot of companies, Google for instance, it always felt to me that Microsoft could improve the situation significantly with minimal resources.

I talked about that in 2015 when Microsoft revealed that it would not publish KB support articles for all updates for Windows 10 anymore. Other instances where communication was sub-par was when the company decided to take away unlimited storage from OneDrive, the whole Windows 10 Telemetry fiasco, or the company's habit of releasing updates before publishing support pages that reveal what these released updates do.

The release of the October 2018 Update, which should never have been released in early October 2018 because of the issues that it caused on some systems, may have pushed Microsoft in the right direction to improve update transparency and quality.

The very first thing that administrators and users may notice is that Microsoft listed all major known issues with the re-released version of the new feature update for Windows 10 on the Support page.

I agree that it is a very weak indicator at the time but Microsoft did update the page several times already to add information about new issues to it. When Microsoft released the feature update on Tuesday, only one issue was listed on the page. On Friday, the list of issues rose to three and today, it is five issues that you find listed on the page.

While it is certainly not speaking for the quality of the update, it could mean that Microsoft will finally start to provide vital information to administrators and users.

Woody Leonhard noticed on Friday that Microsoft changed how updates are delivered. Instead of pushing updates to all Windows systems directly, Microsoft pushed the new cumulative update KB4469342 for Windows 10 version 1809 to the Release Preview ring first.

The update will go through another round of testing and analysis before Microsoft gives the okay to push it to the release population.

Closing Words

Microsoft needs to be transparent when it comes to updates for the operating system and improve communication as well. It is definitely a good idea to push updates to the release preview channel first before they are made available to the entire Windows population.

Again, it is too early to tell if that is a new strategy in regards to update production and testing, or if that is just a short term change to avoid any more complications with the new feature update for the operating system.

Now You: What is your take on this development?

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☛ El artículo completo original de Martin Brinkmann lo puedes ver aquí