“Cumulative update for Autopilot” released to Home devices

Oct 28, 2019 04:22 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft rolled out Windows 10 cumulative update KB4522355 to devices running version 1903 (May 2019 Update) on October 24 with plenty of fixes, including for bugs breaking down the Start menu.

Only a few hours later, devices powered by the Home and Pro editions of the very same Windows 10 version were offered another update, this time labeled as KB4523786 and representing what the software giant described as “cumulative update for Autopilot in Windows 10 version 1903.”

The purpose of this patch was unknown, and information on what the Autopilot does was incredibly limited. As Woody Leonhard of CW writes, Microsoft says Autopilot “is a zero-touch self-service Windows deployment platform introduced with Windows 10, version 1703,” and it is supposed to target domain-connected computers.

But again, the update landed on Windows 10 Home, which by definition can’t be part of a domain, so what’s happening here?

Accidental release

Microsoft says it pushed the update to production devices all accidentally, revealing that it has already pulled it from Windows Update and users can no longer install it.

“A Windows Autopilot update, which was targeted as part of the out of box experience for new devices, was incorrectly offered to customers running Windows Home edition during regular scheduled Windows update scan. Once we became aware of the issue, we stopped distribution of the update. No action is required on your part,” the firm says on its support forums.

While Microsoft says that “no action is required” on users’ part, many rushed to remove it from their devices anyway. If this is done, the mysterious update is no longer offered via Windows Update after that.

For now, the information on this update is still limited, and I doubt Microsoft would share more details about it anytime soon. The next round of cumulative updates for Windows 10 is scheduled to go live on November 12 when the company releases the monthly Patch Tuesday updates.