News
Windows 10 Updates Will Stop Restoring Deleted Apps
Microsoft is promising that future Windows 10 upgrades will stop adding back preinstalled Windows apps that end users or IT pros have removed.
Windows 10 comes with some Microsoft applications preinstalled, as well as other software vendor-produced apps (such as the Candy Crush game), but users or organizations may decide that they don't want them. Unfortunately, the "agile" update process used with Windows 10 delivers frequent updates, and Microsoft's practice has been to add back these "core apps" with Windows 10 upgrades, which occur on a monthly basis.
That behavior, though, will be changing. Deleted apps will stay gone in the near future. However, this new Windows 10 update behavior will only start to take effect with the release of Windows 10 build 14942 or higher, Microsoft indicated, in an announcement this week.
Consequently, it could be a while for the new behavior to show up. For instance, Microsoft released Windows 10 build 14393.321 earlier this month, which is still at a lower build than the promised build 14942.
Participants of Microsoft's Windows Insider testing program, though, may be seeing the new update behavior. Microsoft this week announced the release of preview build 14955 for Windows Insider participants.
The new upgrade behavior coming with build 14942 likely will be a boon for IT pros maintaining Windows 10 environments or creating OS images.
"If you are an enterprise IT Professional who does image configuration and app provisioning, this also applies to you!" Microsoft's announcement stated. "Provisioned apps that you remove will also no longer be put back on upgrade. There's no reason to fear a Windows upgrade will upset the careful set of apps you have configured!"
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.