Windows 7 End-Of-Support is Coming
Ben Erickson May 30 2019 09:36:53
For a while now, Microsoft Windows has seemed to alternate (almost by design? marketing?) between "pretty good" and "holy crap, that's bad" versions of windows. Windows XP was "pretty good". Windows Vista? Not so much. Windows 7- pretty good. Windows 8? Seemingly disowned even by Microsoft. Windows 10? Seems so far to be in that pretty good category, although it gets more complicated due to the new versioning system that resembles service packs. More on that later. There was one "really good" version of Windows by the way. The only problem was that, alas, it wasn't real but a parody (flash). Non-flash, non-interactive youtube version here.
So, guess you're going to be upgrading to Windows 10 then? Ok, let's talk ten. Windows 10 has a new kind of upgrade/update delivery system based on Software as a Service (SaaS). Basically this means you get updates when Microsoft feels like you should get them. The ways to delay updates and how much control you have over what updates get installed are much more hidden and much more limited. Also, feature upgrades (the closest analogy here would be the service pack) get installed every six months (semi-annually).
Microsoft's terminology has changed since they started doing this, causing more confusion. Originally, they had two "branches" of upgrade paths (this only applies to Pro and Enterprise versions, NOT Home). The "Current Branch" (CB) was the cutting edge group who got updates and upgrades immediately (or pretty close to immediately) after they were released out of testing. Then there was the "Current Branch for Business" (CBB) which was a group who got updates after the unhappy CB people had found out most of the bugs, thus causing Microsoft to declare that the updates were "ready for broad use" or "ready for use in organizations" (i.e. businesses who care about stability and stuff not breaking). [I'm purposely leaving out the Long Term Servicing Branch available to large businesses who use Volume Licensing and Windows Insider branches to keep the discussion as simple as possible. Most businesses will not be using these.]
Fast forward a little bit, Microsoft changed their mind about the whole CB/CBB terminology and tried to sync it up with how they released Office 365. So now the concepts were the same but CB became "Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted)" and CBB became simply, "Semi-Annual Channel" (SAC). Fast forward a little bit more into the latest release they made this month (Windows 10 1903) or the "May Release". Now, they've merged Semi-Annual Channel and Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted) together into one "Semi-Annual Channel" which basically means there's only one choice, which basically means there is no choice. SAC it is, then.
Semi-Annual Channel means new "feature upgrades" (think Service Packs, roughly) every six months. Until the most recent release, the CBB/SAC track would delay these upgrades by approximately 4 months after the CB/SAC-T crowd would get them and the bugs would be found and get worked out. Now, starting with Windows 10 "1903" there are no different upgrade tracks. Instead, you get settings that allow you to choose how many days after the general release you want to delay getting the upgrades (Service Packs). If you want to keep things generally the way they were with CBB/SAC, you can set this to 120 days. Quality/Security (think monthly) updates can also be delayed by up to 30 days by similar setting directly below.
These settings, both before and now are collectively referred to as "Windows Update for Business" which sounds like some sort of product or management program. But it's not. It's really just a group of settings. These settings exist in the Windows registry. They can be set manually there, or by the "Update" settings, or through Group Policy (recommended for businesses).
This is all quite a change and may take a while to get used to. If you want to learn more or want to have a professional who listens to your needs and helps you to devise and implement a strategy that works for your business take care of this for you, give us a call today!
- Comments [0]