The Windows 10 April Update (1803): The Littlest Big Update
by Brett Howse on May 25, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Software
- Operating Systems
- Windows
- Microsoft
- Windows 10
Command Line and Windows Subsystem for Linux
The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) has dramatically changed the development opportunities on Windows, and has become very popular. Microsoft has updated it continuously as well, bringing requested features and updates to really improve the experience. With the April Update, there’s once again some nice additions to Linux support on Windows.
What was once a somewhat arduous task, installing Linux distros on Windows now is something that’s moved to the Store, and for the April Update, there’s a couple of new distros available. Kali Linux is now an option, as well as the very popular Debian GNU/Linux. For those that want to run multiple distros, Windows 10 supports having multiple versions installed and running simultaneously.
Likely a very vocal request, background tasks were previously available but would end if the console window was closed. With the April Update, that’s no longer the case.
The WSL team has now brought Unix sockets to Windows as well, so you can communicate over these sockets between Windows and WSL.
People that do Linux admin will be aware of OpenSSH, and Microsoft has brought both a the OpenSSH client and server to Windows. The client is enabled by default, and the server is an on-demand feature as it likely should be.
Both Tar and Curl commands have also arrived in Windows 10’s command line interface, and Microsoft has created a new tool called wslpath to let you easily convert paths between Windows and Linux.
You can now do Linux permissions on files, with the new permission added as metadata to the file, and case sensitivity is now an opt-in feature, although to start an argument, case sensitivity is one of the most annoying features of Linux.
Console Applications Now Supported as UWP
There’s often no easier solution to a problem than a quick console application, but before the April Update, there was no way to distribute these apps through the Store. With the April Update, Console UWP is now supported, so developers can ship and update through the store just like any other UWP app.
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damianrobertjones - Friday, May 25, 2018 - link
Backups can be your friend.voicequal - Saturday, May 26, 2018 - link
Update to 1709 also lost the WHS/Essentials connector for me. Doing my best to defer 1803 until 1709 EOL, or until I actually need one of the new features.damianrobertjones - Friday, May 25, 2018 - link
Updated a load in work, all my home computers, all without issues. Sucks to be you if you did. The millions of people that have no issues seldom say stuff.Zan Lynx - Saturday, May 26, 2018 - link
I did four machines. They all updated without problems.bill44 - Friday, May 25, 2018 - link
When can we expect a proper color management system in Windows 10?Been waiting 2+ years, it's been promissed several times, but now the topic is dead.
Wih wide gamut displays, 10bit color, HDR, we need something better (Apple colorsync?) than sRGB 8bit SDR on our desktop. First, proper color managent, then sort out the current HDR mess.
3D Dynamic LUT support would be nice!
serendip - Friday, May 25, 2018 - link
My Windows Atom tablet has a display bug with the latest update that's probably related to the Intel GPU driver. When using the built-in Windows movie viewer, the screen blanks out for a few seconds when starting and stopping viewing. It doesn't happen with VLC.DiscoDJ - Saturday, May 26, 2018 - link
I own a small computer business in a town of 55k people. Since May 22nd we've had three cases of customers calling and complaining of issues after a Windows Update. I'm have no way of knowing if the update involved is 1803 or the 5-18 monthly update.All 3 machines have suffered from failure of the user account to load properly. You end up at a black screen with no icons other than recycle bin.
Clicking on anything does nothing. Right clicking...ditto. Keyboard commands work, but I haven't found any combination that will fix this.
So I pulled the HDDs (not SSDs) and backed up the user data and reinstalled Windows.
At that point I noticed something interesting. There were extra partitions on the each HDD that were not standard to the factory install (2 HPs, 1 Dell.). It was like the update was creating a new partition before installing.
I am admittedly confused, but like I said, reinstalling Windows from scratch (including all updates) solved the issue, and didn't cause any further issues.
Gunbuster - Saturday, May 26, 2018 - link
it is a reinstall. that's why you get a windows.old dir too. they should not be calling it an updateChristopherFortineux - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link
The extra partitions are for roll-back.B3an - Saturday, May 26, 2018 - link
I wish someone would benchmark Win 10 April Update compared to the original Win 10 release. Would be interesting to see if anything has improved at all. And i mean from gaming to app loading times, start up times, battery life and network performance.