Phenquestions
Windows 10 and updates, a never ending story. Michael Fortin, Corporate Vice President, Windows, revealed insights about the update testing and vetting process at Microsoft this week.
Microsoft releases cumulative updates on the second Tuesday of each month and refers to these updates as "B" releases. The company may also release updates in the third or fourth week of a given month, and refers to these as "C" or "D" releases.
These "C" and "D" updates are preview releases according to Fortin. Preview releases are releases that are still in testing; they will be delivered to devices on the next "B" release along with security updates automatically if automatic updates has not been disabled.
So-called "C" and "D" releases can be downloaded and installed by any Windows user by running a manual check for updates. In other words: if you select "check for updates", you may get pre-release updates that are none-security in nature, on stable versions of Windows.
We also release optional updates in the third and fourth weeks of the month, respectively known as “C” and “D” releases. These are preview releases, primarily for commercial customers and advanced users “seeking” updates.
These updates have only non-security fixes. The intent of these releases is to provide visibility into, and enable testing of, the non-security fixes that will be included in the next Update Tuesday release. Advanced users can access the “C” and “D” releases by navigating to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and clicking the “Check for updates” box. The “D” release has proven popular for those “seeking” to validate the non-security content of the next “B” release.
If you activate "check for updates", pre-release updates may be installed on the device. Microsoft displays no warning prompt or notification to users that they may install pre-release updates when they use the "check for updates" button to run a manual check for updates.
Microsoft should highlight the fact to users of the operating system; a prompt to allow or block pre-release updates needs to be added to the manual update check. While some users may like to get updates as early as possible, others don't want beta software on their devices.
The only thing that you can do about it right now is to never-ever, click on "check for updates" in Windows. (via Forbes and How To Geek (I did not read the latter but Forbes links to it so it probably got the story from the site)
