14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has a long history of broken Windows updates, and the story even continues today with the cumulative updates that the company ships regularly to Windows 10 devices.
But as far as feature updates are concerned, Microsoft says it has fixed the problem, and the likelihood of experiencing issues when installing these has been reduced substantially.
The secret weapon that Microsoft used in the fight against bugs is machine learning (ML), which the company relied on to determine not only the computers that may run into problems when installing feature updates, but also the ones likely to get a smooth experience.
Microsoft engineers explain that Windows 10 version 1803, or April 2018 Update, was the first release that relied on machine learning to ensure a smooth update experience. The system was based on an analysis of six PC health areas, and by the time Windows 10 version 1903, or May 2019 Update, got the go-ahead, this number was increased to 35.
No word on Windows 10 version 1809
While the software giant appears to suggest that machine learning improved the update process gradually from one release to another starting with Windows 10 version 1803, the company doesn’t say anything about the Windows 10 version 1809 blunder.
Windows 10 October 2018 Update, which was the next release after version 1803, was shipped in early October 2018 and then pulled shortly due to a bug that caused data loss. Bugs continued even after the update was republished despite this machine learning system.
“Throughout our ML journey, we consistently see that PCs nominated for updates via ML have a significantly better update experience,” Microsoft’s Archana Ramesh, Senior Data Scientist, Microsoft Cloud and AI, and Michael Stephenson, Partner Data Scientist, Microsoft Cloud and AI, explain in a technical description of the machine learning system.
“With the diversity of the Windows ecosystem and an ML model that is refreshed every day, it's important to determine when the ML model is ready to be broadly applied. In other words, we can only use ML to determine when to offer the update to your PC if we have seen adequate similar hardware configurations that have successfully updated.”
A new Windows 10 feature update is just around the corner, as the 19H2 update is expected to land this month. The machine learning system will be used for 19H2 as well, especially after everything went so smoothly in the case of version 1903.