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Microsoft's Windows 10 Fall Creators Update rollout: A progress report

Microsoft is just about a week into its staged rollout of its Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. So how's it going?
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

It's been just about a week since Microsoft started rolling out the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update to mainstream users on various devices. What's the early feedback look like?

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Credit: Microsoft

I've heard from a number of PC users who've proactively downloaded or had the update pushed to them within the first day or two of availability -- which is noticeably faster than what happened with the original Windows 10 Creators Update that started rolling out in April 2017. I, myself, had the Fall Creators Update (1709, or Build 16299.15) pushed to the HP Spectre 13-inch device I am using the first day it was available. It took months for the Creators Update to be pushed to me on the same device.

When I asked Microsoft last week how long the company expected the Fall Creators Update rollout to take, a spokesperson sent me this statement: "The Creators Update will roll out in a measured way based on feedback."

Today, October 23, Microsoft officials posted a full blog post about the phased rolllout approach that the company is taking with the Fall Creators Update. As it did with previous Windows 10 feature releases, Microsoft is pushing the update in a staggered way, starting with newer devices and machines "which we believe will have the best update experience."

The reason it feels as though more users are getting this feature update faster is because Microsoft "increased the number of Windows 10 devices we've tested in advance with our OEM device and ISV app partners," according to today's blog post.

Windows 10 for PCs has been rolling out via Windows Update, MSDN and the Volume Licensing Center, as is Windows 10 IoT Core for ARM32, x86, x64, and Windows Server 1709.

So far, Microsoft has not rolled out its Fall Update/Feature 2 release for mainstream Windows Phone users. The company has published the list of the 14 handsets which will get the final version of the Fall update for Windows 10 Mobile. As Windows Central noted, two phones are missing from the list -- Lumia 640 and 640 XL. Microsoft officials have declined to say when the company will start rolling out Feature 2 for Windows Phones, other than to say it would be within the same timeframe as Windows 10 Fall Creators Update for PCs.

Update: Microsoft officials said the HoloLens won't be getting the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update refresh at all, as MSPoweruser.com notes.

I've not heard many complaints from those who've installed the Fall Creators Update build with one exception. There seems to be bug causing some users' apps and/or their icons to disappear from the Start menu and list of installed apps when Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is installed. I've heard from a few people affected by this issue. The apps supposedly are still installed on users' PCs, even though they can't see or find them. There is a temporary workaround for this bug, as Neowin notes, but no official fix yet.

I've also heard from one user about problems with problems installing Fall Creators Update on systems with a Samsung NVME SATA drives with SSD. This may or may not be limited to certain ASUS machines. Some also reported problems with NVMe drives when installing the original Creators Update.

I've heard/seen a few other one-off problems on Twitter and other forums, but so far, the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update rollout feedback seems largely positive.

IT pros wondering what's new, from a business-feature standpoint, in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update might want to check out this Microsoft blog post.

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