This privacy setup screen is coming to a new Windows Insider build. (Microsoft Photo)

With the upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update, Microsoft is planning to change the way Windows 10 users update their systems — and the circumstances under which they are required to reboot them.

That’s good news for many Windows users, who have long expressed frustration at the way Windows seems to trigger the installation of updates just when they need to get something urgent done.

The company recently provided details of how users will be offered greater flexibility and choice in when their systems will be updated and rebooted — including more options for rescheduling updates if the originally-planned update is no longer convenient.

Users will be offered the opportunity to do an immediate reboot, schedule a time to do the reboot that implements an update — or “snooze” (which will put a hold on the update process for three days to give users time to finish whatever urgent things they need to do).

Inside companies that run Windows, administrators will be allowed to defer the installation of different kinds of Windows 10 changes, distinguished between “feature” and “quality” updates, a Microsoft spokesperson said this week.

Companies will be delay feature updates for up to 365 days, and quality updates for up to 30 days. In addition, a pause enabled via the new privacy-centric features in Windows 10 (i.e. the snooze feature mentioned earlier) will override other scheduled updates and stop all updates (except for Defender) from being applicable for the amount of time a user sets either in snooze or the new scheduled reboot time.

For example, user with the right permissions will be able to pause a feature update while allowing quality updates to continue. Microsoft says enterprises will maintain the ability to control which updates get rolled out at all – and will be able to roll them back if they impact mission-critical applications.

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