Windows 10 May 2020 Update is Now Available

Microsoft has announced that Windows 10, version 2004 is now generally available. The company has been testing this release with users of its Insider program and is now opening it up to everyone who wants to install the update.

There are quite a few enhancements in this release for consumers, that you can read about here, but for IT Pros, the biggest improvement is Windows Subsystem for Linux 2. This release is a major upgrade and for the first time includes an actual Linux kernel inside of Windows 10 that improves performance (especially in file system access) and compatibility.

The other update that is likely of interest is that you can now name your virtual desktops. This is helpful if you use this feature to create dashboard desktops for specific apps/zones/environments.

As per our usual recommendation, if you are planning to roll out this update to your users, you should do so in waves – or rings as Microsoft calls it. Starting with a small group of users on non-critical hardware and then slowly expanding it to more users as confidence in its stability increases.

But the big question for your organization is if you will deploy this update at all? The reason being is that Microsoft only supports spring releases for 18 months but fall releases are supported for 30. So unless you really like updating your users to the latest and greatest, most IT Pros are likely waiting until the fall before they consider updating.