Microsoft going to extreme lengths to ensure May update avoids mistakes of 1809

Enlarge / Windows is now perpetually under construction. (credit: David Holt / Flickr)

Microsoft really wants to avoid a repeat of the mess surrounding the release of the last Windows 10 feature update. Windows 10 version 1809, the October 2018 update, was found to have a bug that in some circumstances destroyed user data, forcing the company to suspend the update's rollout. It turned out that the bug had been reported but was overlooked, and even once that problem was resolved, that version still suffered certain other awkward bugs.
Accordingly, the company is going to take a very different tack with the next feature update to Windows 10. Codenamed 19H1 and currently still branded 1903 (denoting it was completed in March of 2019), the next update was expected to be released as the April 2019 update. But that's not the case. It's going to be the May 2019 update, because Microsoft is being a great deal more cautious about this release. Next week, a build will be pushed to the Release Preview ring, which should provide around a month of testing before its expected release date.
This alone is a major difference as compared to 1809, as that release largely skipped the release preview ring for reasons that remain unclear. But Microsoft is going much further to make this release a success.
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