Cooperation is needed in the corona crisis. This also applies to IT companies. Reasons such as home office and home quarantine place a heavy load on the network. In order to relieve the network, companies such as Netflix, Amazon, Disney and Sony have already reduced the quality and download speed. Now Microsoft is also contributing to this. Until further notice, only updates that are really important can be downloaded.
New “update policy” from May
The corona crisis has consequences for all sectors of the economy. Now Microsoft is also reacting with appropriate steps. From May of this year, only those updates will be released which are really important for the security of the system. Conversely, optional updates will be left out.
C- and D-releases are affected
Not all versions of Windows are affected by the company’s new update strategy. Only users of Windows 10 v1909 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 will notice the change in strategy. In particular, bug fixes, which are usually rolled out towards the end of the month, are now left out. But one constant remains – the so-called Patch Tuesday. Every second Tuesday of the month offers security updates.
Changed support of own operating systems
In addition to the changed update policy, Microsoft has recently announced that it will change the support of its own operating systems. The Enterprise, Education and IoT Enterprise versions of Windows 10 v1709 will now be supported until October 13 this year. Originally, the support was only to last until April 2020. Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro (v1709) are exceptions to this new regulation. For the Windows Home and Windows Pro variants in v1809, support will continue until May 2020. Windows v1903 will continue to receive support until December 2020, and v1909 will continue to receive support until May 11, 2021.
Not only Windows is affected
Besides the Windows operating system, other software is also affected by the new update policy. For example, the Edge Browser will “stop” at version 80 for the time being. However, this is not only due to a network relief. It also has very practical reasons. After all, many employees in the software forges are currently working in the home office. This apparently makes it more difficult to roll out new versions.
