05-29-2020 , 03:16 PM
Quote:Windows 10, version 2004, officially known as the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, is now available through Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and Windows Update for Business, and can be downloaded from Visual Studio Subscriptions, the Software Download Center (via Update Assistant or the Media Creation Tool), and the Volume Licensing Service Center. For those of you exploring your deployment options in a remote work scenario, check out Deploying a new version of Windows 10 in a remote world.
Note: If you are using Check for updates from your Windows Update settings (Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update) you may not see Download and install on your device as we are slowly throttling up availability, or as your device might have a compatibility issue for which a safeguard hold is in place until we are confident that you will have a good update experience.
Today marks the start of the 18-month servicing timeline for this Semi-Annual Channel release. As such, we recommend that IT administrators begin targeted deployments of Windows 10, version 2004 to validate that the apps, devices, and infrastructure used by their organizations work as expected with the new features. For the servicing timeline for the other editions of Windows 10, please see the Windows lifecycle fact sheet.
As you look to roll out this new update to your organization, this post outlines some of the new, key capabilities and enhancements that will enable you to benefit from intelligent security, simplified updates, flexible management, and enhanced productivity, specifically in the areas of:
This post also covers:
- Configuration and deployment (Delivery Optimization, servicing and deployment, Windows Update for Business)
- Cortana
- Ease of access
- Multi-language/multi-locale support
- Windows Subsystem for Linux
- Windows built-in security (Application Guard, FIDO2, System Guard, Windows Hello, Windows Sandbox)
- Additional improvements
Now let's get into the details.
Configuration and deployment in Windows 10, version 2004
Just as features continually evolve in Windows 10, servicing, updating, and Windows setup continue to get better with each update. Based on your feedback, we've improved the Windows setup experience, added more PowerShell cmdlets to Delivery Optimization, added a cloud recovery option, and made some additional enhancements.
Delivery Optimization enhancements
Based on direct feedback and requests from customers like you, we've added new PowerShell cmdlets to help you better take advantage of the bandwidth savings offered by Delivery Optimization:
Get-DeliveryOptimizationStatus -PeerInfo. Offers a real-time view behind-the-scenes of peer-to-peer activity (e.g. the peer IP Address, bytes received/sent).
Get-DeliveryOptimizationLogAnalysis. Get a summary of the activity in your Delivery Optimization log (e.g. the total number of downloads, downloads from peers, and overall peer efficiency). Use the -ListConnections flag to for in-depth look at peer-to-peer connections.
Enable-DeliveryOptimizationVerboseLogs. Offers a greater level of detail to assist in troubleshooting.
In addition to the PowerShell cmdlets, Delivery Optimization in Windows 10, version 2004 offers:
Enterprise network throttling. We've made enhancements to foreground vs. background throttling.
Automatic cloud-based congestion detection. Leverage the power of the Delivery Optimization cloud service to help identify download storms on your network. In short, the existing policy to delay background downloads from HTTP will indicate that the cloud service is allowed to dynamically back off downloading updates from the cloud for some devices while continuing to leverage local peer sources. Similarly, the same feature can help improve overall peer utilization by dynamically choosing which devices can download updates first. This feature is particularly useful to those of you who are deploying via rings and would like to avoid selecting individual devices in ring 0 (which can be cumbersome if you have thousands of sites). (Note: This client feature requires a cloud service support, which will be available in the near future, for full functionality.).
Servicing and deployment enhancements
We've continued to evolve the technologies available to support your Windows deployment efforts and the way you manage updates. With Windows 10, version 2004, you can take advantage of the following improvements:
Reduced offline time during feature updates. Beginning with Windows 10, version 1703, we've steadily reduced end user downtime during a feature update. With Windows 10, version 2004, offline time continues to decrease, from a median time of over 80 minutes in version 1703, to 16 minutes in version 2004, including only a single reboot for many users.
Improved controls for reserved storage. With the release of Windows 10, version 1903, we introduced reserved storage for newly manufactured PCs and clean Windows 10 installs. With Windows 10, version 2004, we've added a new set of Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) commands and APIs so you can enable and disable reserved storage on demand, including reserved storage for Windows 10 devices that were not shipped with Windows 10, version 1903 and higher. For the full set of reserved storage command line options, see DISM Reserved Storage Command-line Options.
Improved controls and diagnostics for Windows Setup. For those using Windows Setup, Windows 10, version 2004 offers more control when upgrading to the latest update. For example:
Dynamic Update. You can now search, download, and install Dynamic Updates, but exclude the latest quality update and/or driver updates.
Reduced offline time for users. Instruct Windows Setup to start update operations on the down-level OS without initiating a reboot to start the offline phase, then instruct Windows Setup to complete the installation at an appropriate time.
SetupDiag: SetupDiag provides additional diagnostic information to troubleshoot update failures. For more information, see Deployment Troubleshooting and Log Files.
Recover Windows 10 from the cloud. With this release we've added the option to recover Windows 10 by downloading the necessary files from the cloud, resulting in increased reliability and, depending on your internet speed, a faster recovery. For more details about the cloud-reset process, see Reset this PC option: Cloud download.
Windows Autopilot. Procure devices and have them delivered directly to the end user and provisioned from the cloud. Windows Autopilot has been available since Windows 10, version 1703 (with the 7D update) and with each new version of Windows 10 we add new, requested features. Today we're adding the ability to:
Configure user-driven Hybrid Azure AD Join with VPN support. This support has been backported to Windows 10, versions 1909 and 1903.
Configure language settings in the Windows Autopilot profile so that the out-of-box experience (OOBE) will skip the language, locale, and keyboard pages when the device is connected to ethernet.
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