14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has finally published the Windows 10 April 2018 Update as a manual download, allowing users who don’t want to wait any longer to get the new tidbits right away.
The automatic rollout is projected to begin on May 8, the same day when Microsoft also kicks off this month’s Patch Tuesday cycle, at which point Windows 10 April 2018 Update will start showing up in Windows Update for the first waves of systems flagged as compatible.
Just like in the past, Microsoft will use a global rollout in waves, which means that systems across the world will gradually receive the OS update as the company addresses software and hardware compatibility issues. With the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, Microsoft introduced a machine learning (ML) system to select devices that were supposed to upgrade flawlessly, and based on the initial results, this update mechanism would be further expanded to the April 2018 Update as well.
“For the April 2018 Update rollout, we will expand our use of ML to identify the devices ready to update, incorporating things like additional compatibility data. This will allow us to deliver updates to devices as fast as possible while providing even better customer experiences,” Microsoft explains.
“With the April 2018 Update, we have also further shortened the amount of time your device is offline during updates up to 63% compared to the Windows 10 Creators Update. The April 2018 Update will follow the same phased rollout approach of proactively monitoring all available feedback and update experience data and making the appropriate product updates during the rollout.”
How to get April 2018 Update from Windows Update
But as compared to the Fall Creators Update, Microsoft has also made it easier for users to manually download and install the new OS build.
If for version 1709 users had to turn to the Media Creation Tool or the Windows 10 Update Assistant to do this manually, the April 2018 Update introduces a manual download option via Windows Update.
In other words, the update is there in Windows Update, but the download process isn’t triggered until you manually check for updates. To do this, all you have to do is to go to the following path:
Settings > Update & security > Windows Update > Check for updates
Once you press the Check for updates button, Windows Update should scan for new OS updates and begin the process of downloading the Feature update to Windows 10, version 1803. An automatic check won’t be performed until May 8, the day when Microsoft ships Patch Tuesday security fixes, so checking for updates manually is the only way to get it until now.
Needless to say, it takes some time to download the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, and it all depends on a series of factors, like your computer’s configuration and the Internet connection speed. On the other hand, once the download process comes to an end, your system should spend less time in offline stage, as Microsoft has tweaked this process to perform more tasks before the machine needs to be restarted.
Microsoft says that in some cases installing the Windows 10 April 2018 Update could take only 30 minutes, though on systems here at Softpedia the average time spent for installing this new OS version is somewhere around 40 minutes, with slower machines requiring an extra 10 minutes.
No upgrade issue was experienced whatsoever, and judging from early reports, the process appears to be a lot smoother than it was in the case of previous Windows 10 versions. We’ll continue to monitor forums and social networks and let you know should any bugs be discovered.