Could it be that the main confusion is that “Defer Windows Updates” doesn’t apply to the regular updates, but only the feature updates, like the Creators Update?

v1703 upgrade will not be delivered directly, instead you first get regular update kb4013214

which installs a “Privacy” review panel, which you need to go though to set your privacy options

then you will get v1703 through Windows Update

For non-techies, there is an article here to ponder..

However, it does bring into question the true compatibility of older hardware on W10 when it comes to the evolution of the OS. Future upgrades may render W10 unusable on some systems, or worse still render the PC itself unusable.

When GWX was first offered, the minimum system requirements were very low for the first W10 build. The specs were revised up with the Anniversary Update and now the Creators Update is apparently pushing a new threshold. This was inevitable and the techie world knew it.

I contend that the windows update appraiser patch, KB 3150513, is determining if a system is going to get the latest W10 build or not and that is why it was updated before the Creators Update was released. MS knows that some systems will not be able to handle the new build.

Another naughty list is being compiled, however, this list has nothing to do with banning W7/8 running on new silicon, this list is about a new W10 build being banned from running on older silicon. If the PC is considered incompatible for the latest build what will happen? MS could always turn off windows update for that processor! They have a KB for that.

Well, CU is actually the first Win 10 version (more than two and half year after the Win 10 shiz show started) that is somewhat stable (Windows XP like). At least, it’s a lot more stable than the cr**py AU release, which refused to boot into the desktop after each and every Windows update. The CU install (manually on top of AU) worked without issues and there’s hope that Microsoft gets the Win 10 act together by 2020… Nonetheless, it’s crucial to review ALL settings after installing CU since the smart folks at Microsoft love it to reset telemetry settings. Finally, anone using group policies/registry settings to control Windows Updates should reset those settings BEFORE installing CU, and restore afterwards. Otherwise, some settings might be locked afterwards (i.e. Configure Automatic Updates). It seems, the smart folks at Microsoft broke some internal handling of related group policies.

Edited for content

I had downloaded the Win10_1703_English_x64.iso and installed it three weeks ago on my test system (same specs as my primary system) on which I had just put 1607. I encountered no problems installing and running it on the old system which was modern seven years ago. Playing around with Paint3D, I found that it doesn’t save in any useful format and so I had to use 3D builder to do that. Ho-hum, nothing new under the sun from my point of view. After simply uninstalling and turning off what 1703 allowed me to, for all intents and purposes 1703 looked no different to me than 1607. If I was into 3D printing, I certainly wouldn’t be using Paint3D and 3DBuilder as my go to software, so I have to wonder what all the fuss is about? I mean, can’t Microsoft just update their subsystems separately the way they always used to? If the .Net Framework could go from 4.5 to 4.6 back on Windows 7, why can’t that and UWP things continue to be done separately in Windows 10? Why would any of that necessitate kernel level API changes? What makes it necessary to change all of this software at the same time? Are Microsoft’s managers and engineers so desperate for relevance in the waning days of the Windows that they resort to this to get attention to avoid getting canned too? Anyway, for right now anyway, I’m treating the Creators Update like a dog treats a fireplug… 🙂

@woody: this PCWorld article just came out yesterday:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3192588/windows/dont-install-the-windows-10-creators-update-on-your-own-microsoft-advises.html

Well according to MS appearently now is not the time to install the latest Creators Update “Alpha” release of the “Steaming Pile” that is Windows 10:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3009112/microsoft-dont-install-the-windows-10-creators-update-yourself

I had my v1703 installation in my test VM all tweaked up, managed to get Windows Update to bring it up to 15063.138, then… Windows Update just quit working.

I was able to update from the catalog to 15063.250, but the normal online update process just failed and returned error code 0x80070426 with some vague note that it might be helpful if requesting support.

Tell me why, in 2017 when we have operating systems that download thousands of megabytes of data to install, that a function like Windows Update should be able to fail with an error code that would leave a career software engineer with 40 years experience unable to begin to understand what’s wrong.

It’s absolutely ludicrous.

And Woody’s right; let us masochists who love testing buggy software play with it for a few months. There’s no way I’d trust this turkey to run a critical system.

-Noel

It would be interesting to know if any of the Surface Studio systems received the CU through windows update. It was built for this update. My understanding is that they are shipped with AU on board. MS boasted that they took 30,000 orders in 2016 for shipment starting April 2017.

AlexEiffel wrote:

Oh that is such a mess. I have a computer I wanted to transfer data from to an AU one and I saw they changed the REFS version in CU to a version no other Windows has, not even Server.

This is normal in the current context.
Server 2016 is 1607 (being LTSB), while Windows 10 CB was “service packed” to 1703.

AlexEiffel wrote:

MS themselves called CB the “pilot” phase.

Where?

AlexEiffel wrote:

Do you really think a lot of enterprises should run CB on production machines? I don’t see the advantage vs waiting for CBB, plus I only see more risk of work disruptions.

I don’t want to comment either way. Just relaying what appears to be the official documentation.
I would say it is closer to the marketing side, but you may be right that has some engineering elements in it.
Large organisations tend to put more emphasis on compliance than on the end result and if things go wrong, they go back to the source and sort out that way.
For me at home, I install everything and in the rare event that something goes wrong or a patch is retired, I just uninstall that patch.
I don’t see why a lot of vocal posters here who have limited understanding of the technology and lack perspective of the industry as a whole anyway make claims which are far beyond their league.

Check out this Investopedia article titled “Microsoft Blocks Latest Windows 10 Update”
http://www.investopedia.com/news/microsoft-blocks-latest-windows-10-update/
It came out on April 27

And this International Business Times article “Windows 10 Creators Update may have bugs – do not install it manually, warns Microsoft”
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/windows-10-creators-update-may-have-bugs-do-not-install-it-manually-warns-microsoft-1618881

AlexEiffel wrote:

I am not amused at all about the way Microsoft keeps issuing releases that are not polished enough

This is not clear at all. Is this just because there is a perception that it is so?
Microsoft has a known record of good and bad patches and Woody is probably the most knowledgeable person on the planet when it comes to Microsoft patching history.
I don’t find recent patches as being worse quality than usual on average.

The problem is also that I now fear that I might get unlucky and not just have to remove a patch, but get deeper issues that takes a much longer time to fix, like some folks who got partitions issues.

I am not fully aware about the partition issues, although I read a little bit about it.
It may be related to the known fact that every upgrade tends to create an additional Recovery hidden partition, which I tend to remove and it comes back again at the next major update. The cycle repeats itself and I cannot say that I am very pleased with that implementation. The partition issue may have something to do with the maximum number of 4 primary partitions for an MBR drive. You see, I tend to ignore this sort of issues because I can control them relatively easily, although it takes me few days to bring things back in control the way I want them to be.

Home version? It is outside of my scope. I have to draw a line somewhere. There is no excuse though to have Pro downgraded to a lower status than Enterprise, when Enterprise is not widely available. In Windows 7 times, Retail Enterprise was named Ultimate and even then Pro was of equal status. Now, we don’t have the luxury of buying Enterprise or equivalent through retail channels and in such a situation, it is expected that Pro is the closest retail version available.

It is not about blaming confused users. It is more about some users who believe that they are owed the highest quality hard to find information while they know better and do not have much to give, instead preferring to complain forever.
I don’t have an interest in reading that sort of “fluff” or even “superfluff” and I think that those posts should go in the rants area.

Yesterday in my Creator’s VM I opened a File Explorer window and navigated to a network drive on a server via a UNC name (\\SERVER\SHARE). The drive happened to be spun down, but from what I’ve seen Windows caches at least one subdirectory level so the file list came up immediately.

However, I clicked one of the column headings in Details view to change from Alphabetic to Modification Date sorting.

The File Explorer files pane just went blank.

I watched and heard the drive spin up (I was in the same room) but File Explorer never refreshed. I tried pressing the F5 key and still nothing. Only navigating away and back again caused the files to show again.

I do exactly this kind of thing enough that I would have noticed it if it had been a problem in older versions of the OS. I don’t recall seeing it happen before. Yes, I know there have been reports of “Explorer fails to update” issues going WAYY back but I have fortunately been free of them.

This is just another data point implying Creator’s Update is not quite ready for serious use.

-Noel

Do any of you have anything official about the issue someone here reported where some group policies settings gets locked or broken when you go from AU to CU? The person suggested to reset first before updating then reapply after. I don’t want to do that. I used LGPO to set plenty of GPs on lots of autonomous computers for various friends and others. It is not practical for me to call them in advance, reset settings, apply AU then reapply settings. I specifically used GPs to have as much as I can a set it and forget it experience with those computers while being able to maybe add a few new GPs after AU later with no hurry if most things stayed set up properly. This potential issue is very annoying to me.

I installed it yesterday on dual boot and d***, it’s quite faster compared to 8.1 on my new rig… Will keep on testing, but I’m starting to get a bit sold on W10.

BTW, I downloaded from MS site and although the ISO date was 20th of March or so, it turns out I have 1703 installed. Is there 1703 on MS servers already or is it because I was on cable connection during install?