14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 10 version 1903, or the May 2019 Update, is officially “ready for broad deployment,” with Microsoft now recommending commercial customers to update their devices as soon as possible.
Marking a Windows 10 feature update as ready for broad deployment is a key milestone for every release because it pretty much means that enterprises can safely install it on their own device fleets.
Despite the thorough testing that takes place before the debut of Windows 10 feature updates, also with help from Windows insiders, these often end up experiencing more or less critical issues, many of which are later addressed with cumulative updates shipped every month.
Because of the risk of bugs, all mixed with the resources needed to upgrade an entire fleet of Windows 10 devices to a new version of the operating system, many enterprises choose to simply wait for a few more months after a feature update gets the go-ahead.
The “ready for broad deployment” tag pretty much means that Microsoft has resolved the majority of bugs hitting the operating system, essentially telling businesses that they can now proceed to installing Windows 10 version 1903 on their devices.
“Windows 10, version 1903 (the May 2019 Update) is designated ready for broad deployment for all users via Windows Update,” Microsoft says.
“As devices running the Home, Pro, and Pro for Workstation editions of Windows 10, version 1803 (the April 2018 Update) will reach end of service on November 12, 2019, we are broadly updating these devices, as well as those running earlier versions of Windows 10 that are past end of service, to keep these devices both supported and receiving monthly updates. If you are not offered the Windows 10, version 1903 feature update, please check below for known issues and safeguard holds that may affect your device.”
Windows 10 version 1903 being marked as ready for broad deployment comes just at the right time for Microsoft because of two different reasons.
As the company says in its announcement, November will witness the demise of Windows 10 version 1803, or April 2018 Update. Because Microsoft only supports the two most recent Windows 10 versions of Home, Pro, and Pro for Workstations SKUs, finalizing the rollout of the latest feature update is critical in order to allow all devices to upgrade.
Once Windows 10 version 1803 is pulled, users can upgrade to Windows 10 version 1809 (October 2018 Update) and Windows 10 version 1903 (May 2019 Update).
Furthermore, Microsoft will finalize the development of another feature update for Windows 10, currently known as 19H2 – this is a reference to its release date, as the update should be complete in the second half of 2019; according to Microsoft’s typical schedule, this update is ready in September and then pushed to devices beginning with October.
Because a new feature update is just around the corner, Microsoft needs to complete the rollout of the previous stable release, and marking it as ready for broad deployment is one essential step in this direction. Not doing this would only lead to more fragmentation in the Windows 10 ecosystem, and this is certainly something that Microsoft doesn’t need.
Despite being flagged as ready for broad deployment, Windows 10 May 2019 Update still isn’t available for all devices. Microsoft has some upgrade blocks in place in order to prevent the update from being installed on devices where certain issues can be experienced, and until resolving these errors, the update wouldn’t be offered on Windows Update.
Users who want to ignore these upgrade blocks can install Windows 10 version 1903 with the Media Creation Tool or the dedicated ISOs that also allow for a clean install.