Windows 10 Build 14986 - A Large but Painful Update
On Dec 7, MS released Windows 10 Build 14986 to Fast Ring Insiders. This was a PC only build.
This build contained the largest number of changes and fixes of any Redstone 2 or Creators Update to date.
From Cortana to Windows Defender to USB Audio, Ink and Edge Extensions - there were 8 new features announced and some 25+ fixes.
There was also a large focus on Asian language and input methods support.
It had been nearly 3 weeks since the last release build 14971 back on Nov 17 and so to see such a large list of new capabilities was not overwhelmingly surprising but still a nice group.
One of the reasons for the delay was a focus toward the new UUP update method which is designed to reduce download and update times.
Unfortunately for me and many others - according to the Feedback Hub it was not a smooth update.
I am currently using two test machines - a traditional desktop PC and an 8" tablet. Both experienced issues.
With both devices, the initial update download stayed at 0% for a very long time - maybe 15 minutes. With the tablet the download failed first with a 0x80d000a error and then 0x80240031 for any attempt afterwards. Any reboots or other attempts to download the update would fail.
With my PC the update actually downloaded, then went through preparation okay and allowed me to restart to apply the update. And even though it then made it through the configuration phase, after the first reboot, the update failed at about 19%, rebooted and then stated it was "restoring to previous version of windows". And so the good news was I did get corrected back to 14971, but obviously a big problem.
With both the way I fixed the problem, was to assume that the UUP was having a problem understanding the current state of my machine, so I needed to force a full update. Throughout my Windows 10 Insider experience I had run into issues with Windows Update before and there is a well known technique by which you manually stop the Windows Update Service, rename the Software Distribution directory and then restart the service which basically rebuilds the Software distribution from scratch.
Luckily in both cases the approach worked. But this problem with Windows update corruption seems to happen too often and there is not a user friendly way to correct the problem. Sure there is the "troubleshooting" wizards, but often I find it doesn't work.
The new UUP did not speed anything up at all. In fact after I performed the technique, my tablet stayed at 0% during download for over 30 minutes as it tried to rebuilt the software distribution. End to end it took nearly 2 hours for my tablet to update.
I have also run into similar issues with Windows Store, while not as much recently, I have experienced several times during the various branches, pain with the Store which again was related to the local configuration caches that get corrupted and then need to be cleared in order to become operational again.
This is an area that MS really needs to shore up. Under the new Windows as a Service model with large cumulative updates, Windows update more than every needs to be rock solid and even needs to be able to fix itself better than it currently does.
And as many others have posted to the Feedback Hub, it would be great if MS would make the ISOs of these builds available quickly to insiders. Considering that we are updating almost weekly, it would be nice to get a clean install done every once and a while during the branch to have a known good to work from.
As far as all the new content in 14986 is concerned, while some of the new features are nice, one missing one was the new People Hub that was such a big deal at Ignite. And while features like voice interaction with Cortana and iHeart Radio are kind of cool, how often do you really use that capability ?
Bottom line is that 14986 is out and it was a relatively large but painful update.
This build contained the largest number of changes and fixes of any Redstone 2 or Creators Update to date.
From Cortana to Windows Defender to USB Audio, Ink and Edge Extensions - there were 8 new features announced and some 25+ fixes.
There was also a large focus on Asian language and input methods support.
It had been nearly 3 weeks since the last release build 14971 back on Nov 17 and so to see such a large list of new capabilities was not overwhelmingly surprising but still a nice group.
One of the reasons for the delay was a focus toward the new UUP update method which is designed to reduce download and update times.
Unfortunately for me and many others - according to the Feedback Hub it was not a smooth update.
I am currently using two test machines - a traditional desktop PC and an 8" tablet. Both experienced issues.
With both devices, the initial update download stayed at 0% for a very long time - maybe 15 minutes. With the tablet the download failed first with a 0x80d000a error and then 0x80240031 for any attempt afterwards. Any reboots or other attempts to download the update would fail.
With my PC the update actually downloaded, then went through preparation okay and allowed me to restart to apply the update. And even though it then made it through the configuration phase, after the first reboot, the update failed at about 19%, rebooted and then stated it was "restoring to previous version of windows". And so the good news was I did get corrected back to 14971, but obviously a big problem.
With both the way I fixed the problem, was to assume that the UUP was having a problem understanding the current state of my machine, so I needed to force a full update. Throughout my Windows 10 Insider experience I had run into issues with Windows Update before and there is a well known technique by which you manually stop the Windows Update Service, rename the Software Distribution directory and then restart the service which basically rebuilds the Software distribution from scratch.
Luckily in both cases the approach worked. But this problem with Windows update corruption seems to happen too often and there is not a user friendly way to correct the problem. Sure there is the "troubleshooting" wizards, but often I find it doesn't work.
The new UUP did not speed anything up at all. In fact after I performed the technique, my tablet stayed at 0% during download for over 30 minutes as it tried to rebuilt the software distribution. End to end it took nearly 2 hours for my tablet to update.
I have also run into similar issues with Windows Store, while not as much recently, I have experienced several times during the various branches, pain with the Store which again was related to the local configuration caches that get corrupted and then need to be cleared in order to become operational again.
This is an area that MS really needs to shore up. Under the new Windows as a Service model with large cumulative updates, Windows update more than every needs to be rock solid and even needs to be able to fix itself better than it currently does.
And as many others have posted to the Feedback Hub, it would be great if MS would make the ISOs of these builds available quickly to insiders. Considering that we are updating almost weekly, it would be nice to get a clean install done every once and a while during the branch to have a known good to work from.
As far as all the new content in 14986 is concerned, while some of the new features are nice, one missing one was the new People Hub that was such a big deal at Ignite. And while features like voice interaction with Cortana and iHeart Radio are kind of cool, how often do you really use that capability ?
Bottom line is that 14986 is out and it was a relatively large but painful update.
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