Source: ETCIO
The company is now telling customers running last year’s Windows 10 version 1803 that it will soon begin forced upgrade to the latest feature refresh released in May.
Microsoft has announced that it would soon start a forced update using machine learning for Windows 10 users who are using last year’s 1803
“We are now beginning to build and train the machine learning (ML) based rollout process to update devices running the April 2018 Update, and earlier versions of Windows 10, to ensure we can continue to service these devices,” Microsoft notes.
Usually, the Home 1803 PCs would have been upgraded to the successor, last fall’s Windows 10 October 2018 Update, aka 1809, long before now. But because 1809 harboured a destructive bug, making Microsoft pull it from circulation and not return it for re-release until early 2019 (three months behind schedule), it seemed the company simply gave up on 1809.
Microsoft also decided to change its feature upgrade policy for Windows 10 Home, that came in April, when the company announced the “Download and install now” (DaIN) option. DaIN will let users decide when, or even if, to download and install one of the twice-yearly feature upgrades.
But even as Microsoft turned over more control than ever before to Windows 10 Home users and those running unmanaged Windows 10 Pro PCs, the firm reserved the right to do things the old fashioned way.
As the Windows 10 version powering a PC neared the end of support the company would intervene as it always did before, to upgrade the system and keep patches flowing.
Once Microsoft rolls out a feature upgrade, users will themselves decide whether to acquire and adopt it and if so, when they do.
If they decline a feature upgrade, they will continue to run what now powers their Windows 10 PC. At or around the four-to-five-months-remaining mark Microsoft will take things in its own hands and start to upgrade PCs to keep them in support.