Enlarge / Who doesn't love some new Windows? (credit: Peter Bright / Flickr)
The ill-fated Windows 10 October 2018 Update has hitherto been offered only to those Windows users that manually sought it, either by using the dedicated upgrade and media creation tools or by manually checking for update in Windows Update. Three months after its initial release, Microsoft has at last started pushing it to Windows users automatically.
The update was originally withdrawn because of a data loss bug. A month after the initial release, the bug was fixed and the fixed update was made available. Even this release was limited, with a number of blocks in place due to known incompatibilities. As described above, it was then only offered to those taking certain manual steps to update their machines. One month ago, these blocks were largely removed.
Even with automatic deployment and installation now enabled, the beleaguered update is still rolling out in phases. Initially, it will be offered to spaces where Microsoft is most confident that the update will be trouble-free—machines with configurations already known and tested. As the tap is slowly opened more and the update is made available to a wider range of hardware, the company will use operating system telemetry to detect any lingering incompatibilities with device drivers or unusual software.