Major Changes To Windows In The May Updates

[RV_]

Instead of the pattern of April/October for major changes to Windows because of some issues with games they delayed the April major update until next month. I would imagine there will be some updates next Tuesday which is the second Tuesday of the month. The articles that I will link to show you that even folks with Windows Home will be able to defer and control their updates even more than the folks with Windows Pro could do before. Being on the road with slow or limited Internet , a problem fast going away along most routes will not be exacerbated by Windows updates when you are not ready for them. The article I am excerpting a tiny bit from is a comprehensive listing and overview with a lot of screen shots and related links to get you prepared and able to understand the major changes that are going to happen. The April major change is delayed so that games that crash with the security changes have time for their vendors to fix the issues. I will only list the main topics covered in more depth in the article here:

https://www.howtogeek.com/402569/everything-new-in-windows-10s-april-2019-update/

Excerpt:

"Everything New in Windows 10’s May 2019 Update

Windows 10’s next update is the May 2019 Update, which is version 1903 and was codenamed 19H1 during development. It features a light theme, speed improvements, and lots of polish. There are no crazy new features like My People or Timeline.

This article includes everything new as of Insider Preview build 18362.30, released on April 4, 2019. Microsoft previously called this Windows 10’s April 2019 Update, but it was delayed. The update will spend time in the “Release Preview” ring being tested before a stable release later in May."

Big Changes to Windows Update

Speed Improvements (Thanks to Better Spectre Fixes)

The news of Spectre shook the industry at the start of 2018. Spectre is a design flaw in CPUs, and it allows programs to escape their restrictions and read other programs’ memory spaces. Microsoft patched Windows to help block Spectre attacks, but the resulting patches reduced your PC’s performance in some scenarios—especially on PCs from 2015 and earlier, which don’t have the CPU features needed to speed up the fix.

Now, a change in the April 2019 Update looks set to practically eliminate those performance penalties and speed your PC back up. Specifically, Microsoft is enabling “retpoline” and “import optimization.” All you need to know is your PC should get faster, and you won’t even need to think about it. But here’s a detailed document from Microsoft explaining how these optimizations work if you’re interested in the details.

7 GB of Your PC’s Storage Reserved for Updates

A Light Desktop Theme

Windows Sandbox for Professional Users

A Less Cluttered Default Start Menu

Windows 10 Lets You Uninstall More Built-in Apps

Cortana and the Search Bar Are Separating

The Start Menu Searches All Your PC’s Files

Passwordless Login

A System Tray Icon for Windows Update

Desktop Apps in Virtual Reality

A New Update Naming Scheme (For Now)

Zoom (and More) in the Console

More Automatic Troubleshooting

Notifications Hidden in Full-Screen Apps

Easy Access to Linux Files

Notepad Improvements, Once Again

Blue Screens of Death in Some Games

This update contains a change that causes some games to crash Windows with blue screens of death (BSOD) due to their anti-cheat software. Most—but not all—games have fixed the issue. This was known as a “green screen of death” or GSOD bug because these error screens are green and not blue in Insider builds of Windows 10.

If you launch a game that hasn’t yet fixed the problem in the final release, it will freeze your system with a blue screen. The anti-cheat programs were probably doing terrible things to the Windows kernel and this change probably makes Windows 10 more stable and secure, but it’s a shame that some gamers will stumble into blue screens of death.

We hope all anti-cheat software developers clean up their act and patch this issue quickly. From what Microsoft has said, this issue will be rare.

More Improvements and Changes

Even More Changes!

Again the in depth article is here: https://www.howtogeek.com/402569/everything-new-in-windows-10s-april-2019-update/

 

[docj]

A recent announcement about the upcoming Windows 10 update indicates that it is going to require significantly more disk storage space than any previous update.  My understanding is that the operating system will create a "reserved space" on your disk that will be available to future updates but this will cause an immediate reduction in space available to other programs or storage.

For most newer computers this probably won't be a problem since most hard drives these days are >500GB.  However, if you have a computer that utilizes an SSD you might find yourself tight on space. For example, my Dell came with a 128 GB SSD with the operating system and other applications and a 1 TB HDD for general purpose storage.  Had I not upgraded this to a 256 GB SSD I might have had issues with this new update.  

Microsoft Issues Important Windows 10 Upgrade Warning

[RV_]

Yep Joel,

32 GB total up from 16GB. I have only two systems that might be affected that are 32bit Atom systems with 64GB of storage. MY Dell Venue !! pro tablet, and my Voyo Mini PC also 32bit/64GB storage. We are in the middle of moving to Colorado Springs and I won't get that new update as I have pro on all my systems save the Voyo mini PC. I got it for $100.00 new and it served as the spare bedroom guest PC for 5 years perfectly. The Venue 11 Pro Tablet has a user replaceable battery and since the rear cover comes off I am going to look into swapping out the 64GB mSATA for a 128GB mSATA which I believe may be possible. The Voyo is likely going to become my Linux test bed again. It has a 64GB micro SD Card slot and two USB ports one a USB3.0, so it is not a storage issue.This is also my last year of using my Office 2010 licenses on my six systems. I bought a military special for six computers Office 365 to see if I want to use it or go to Libre Office on all my systems now that I am fully retired on and offline. Perhaps we may find the update allowing for using SDS cards for part of the requirement. I lo0ve the full HD screen of the Venue 11 Pro so I set it to defer updates until 2 June just now. That should give us time to get somewhat settled in our new home. I also have to build my rvroadie.com a new home as my old host has frozen all legacy websites and gave us a year to copy them over and sent me a compressed set of all my files and pics from it free of charge. It is going to actually be cheaper to go to GoDaddy than to stay with Earthlink. Yeah that website is that old! I made it back in the late 1990s or so.

Those folks with 32GB systems are out of luck.

Change, love it! (Since it is my choice to go with changes or not computationally)

[docj]

54 minutes ago, RV_ said:

The Venue 11 Pro Tablet has a user replaceable battery and since the rear cover comes off I am going to look into swapping out the 64GB mSATA for a 128GB mSATA which I believe may be possible.

When I upgraded my boot drive from a 128 GB SSD to a 256 GB I happened to buy a Samsung drive to replace an existing Samsung.  As I recall, the free Samsung upgrade software made that a snap.  It was able to clone the existing drive while it was still in place so all I had to do was make the copy and physically place it in the laptop.  

[RV_]

Joel,

I do it with the old Windows 7 system imaging which is still part of Windows in control panel, which I keep pinned to the task bar. I can then just do the repair boot and then restore the image to the new drive once installed using the backup and restore function with a repair USB drive to boot it, then switching drives before it searches for a drive image to restore from. Going to a larger drive is easy. See mSATAs cannot go in an outside 2.5"/3" drive dock. I have one of those. I do a system image and restore it in  Windows 10 too. Just did my spare system that way when I upgraded the 500 GB HDD, to a 1 TB Seagate Hybrid SSHD I had in a box for a few years. It will be replaced with a true SSD one day, unless I decide to build another and sell the desktop system as is.

I would otherwise need a cable made for that type of drive similar to this: https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-Aluminum-Enclosure-EC-M2CU/dp/B07924J5NT/ref=asc_df_B07924J5NT/?tag=bingshoppinga-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid={creative}&hvpos={adposition}&hvnetw=o&hvrand={random}&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl={devicemodel}&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4584070140128735&psc=1 

For regular 2.5" and 3.5" HDD and SSD drive imaging and backups I still use my Thermaltake BlacX 5G. I have had zero failures with the hermaltake docks but had horrible results with Orico and Wavlink USB 3.0 drive docks and some external HDD/SSD 2.5" drive cases. Some companies are sloppy in making USB 3.0 wiring and docks.

It looks like I will be getting another drive external cable/drive case. But I will need to get into learning all about the hardware of m2 drives and whether the Atom Z- 3770 will support a larger drive first. I also have the Apricorn Cable and they allow downloading the latest version from their website with their cable. https://www.amazon.com/Apricorn-Notebook-Upgrade-Connection-ASW-USB3-25/dp/B005C983NA/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=apricorn+cable&qid=1556473695&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Also that Sabrent m.2 drive case in the link above says this first in the amazon ad: 

• "Note: It doesn’t support M.2 PCIe NVMe or M.2 PCIe AHCI, Pls check your M.2 SSD type before place order.
• Convert an m.2 NGFF solid-state drive into a USB 3.0 or a Standard 2.5in SATA III 6Gbps SSD
• Added protection for your SSD with enclosed housing "

Edited April 28, 2019 by RV_

[RV_]

Here's a YouTube replacement of the m.2 on my venue 11 Pro. The only fault in the video is he keeps calling it a hard drive. I may also be able to upgrade the RAM if I want to re-learn de-soldering.