Users manually downloading the W10 Creators update may face incompatibility issues. The best advice is to wait for the automatic download instead of forcing a manual download.
Microsoft has started rolling out the W10 Creators update, chock full of new creative features, with the first Australian “approved” users receiving it around 14 April. Approved basically means using a Microsoft Surface Pro 4, Surface Book or selected OEM devices. Overall, the update has been relatively trouble free although there have been some reported issues.
Microsoft says around 10% of W10 users now have the update. A company blog stated, “We believe these devices will have the best possible update experience and help us decide when it’s time to begin the next phase of the rollout.
But it also says that the telemetry has revealed some issues with some third-party hardware so it is “Blocking availability of the update to devices we know will experience issues is a key aspect of our controlled rollout approach. We decide what to block based on user impact, and blocking issues are a high priority for us to address as quickly as possible.” Users can manually still download the update but it is not recommended.
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Microsoft has promised update support for existing Windows 10 devices so the tactic of blocking devices with known issues is not unreasonable if it can provide a stable OS update reasonably soon. The more pertinent question is how long can Windows 10, the “last Windows ever” and a software-as-a-service (SaaS) continue to support legacy devices? What is the time frame – five years, ten years …
Microsoft stated at launch time that it should run on devices “built for” Windows 7 SP1 (circa 2011) and 8 (circa 2012) so it was expecting four to five years of legacy hardware support.
In fact, its W10 specification page seems totally archaic compared to current specifications – 1GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, 20GB hard disk (free space), and 800 x 600 display.
When Windows 10 was launched in July 2015, I updated about 50 devices for friends and family - after all, it was free and overall, all continued to work with the new OS. One of the oldest was an Intel Pentium white box PC that started life as XP circa 2001 and had been upgraded hardware and software wise to Windows Vista, 7 and 8 over the years. Another was an Acer Iconia Tab W7 circa 2010 that barely met the basic W10 specifications then.
Today of those 50 devices, the majority have died reflecting that hardware does have a useful life of around five years. The XP box now has a new AMD motherboard, Radeon GPU, memory and hard disk, (and required reactivation by Microsoft) and the Iconia (much treasured at the time) simply won’t run Creators update.
Even Windows 10 creators update 1703 has an end of support date – 13 October 2020.
There will be much more written about legacy support for new W10 versions as there has been much written about legacy OS support for new hardware based on Intel Kaby Lake and AMD Ryzen processors.
If you have rushed the Creators update and are experiencing issues Windows Central has an article titled, “Windows 10 Creators Update common installation problems and fixes.”
I suspect we will see the number of issues as it rolls out for older legacy hardware and peripherals. Perhaps Microsoft has created a rod for its own back in trying to support so much legacy hardware and its time to draw the line in the sand for devices over five years old. What do you think?