The Windows 10 October 2018 Update (1809): Let's Try This Again
by Brett Howse on November 14, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Software
- Operating Systems
- Windows
- Microsoft
- Windows 10
Final Words
Although the Windows 10 October 2018 Update has gotten off to a pretty rocky start, when people get the update they will find some new functionality that isn’t just for show. There’s enough new features here that it’s already difficult to use devices on previous versions, which is generally a good sign.
The Your Phone app is likely the highlight, since it really helps integrate the PC with the world of mobile in an easy to use way. The app is a bit light on features right now, but functionality will improve over time. The ability to send and receive text messages on the PC is a nice feature though, and there’s been many times where the new photo sharing would be very handy.
The new clipboard functionality, tied in with the new screen capture tools, are a great update. Being able to map the new screen capture to the print screen button also makes it much easier to access, and it would not be a huge surprise to see this get eventually set as the default. What would really put the cloud clipboard over the top though would be having it as a standalone app, so you can leave it open and reference it when needed, since right now you have to open it every time you want to paste something.
Proper Dark Mode is slowly taking shape, although we’ll likely continue to see it evolve over the next several updates. Having File Explorer added to the list of Dark Mode views though is welcomed. As with everything on Windows though, having a full system dark mode is difficult to achieve since buy-in from developers is not as strong as some platforms, and much of the software is legacy. But some applications such as Visual Studio do offer proper dark modes, and many of the built-in UWP apps like Skype support this as well.
Edge has come a long way since Windows 10 first launched. At that time, it was pretty difficult to use, but the Edge team has continued to improve their product significantly over time. With Edge now being available on Android and iOS, it’s now quite powerful. There’s no doubt that Google Chrome is still the browser of choice for most people, but Edge does offer a solid product now, with low power usage, and great text rendering.
Overall this is a nice update, and is really the style of update that suits Windows 10 now. It’s been out for three years, and there’s not a big push for major UI changes that drastically alter how people interact with the operating system. There’s likely always going to be a debate about how often is too often for a major feature update, and the twice per year scenario we have now is perhaps too aggressive, when you see Android and iOS both updating only once per year, and neither of those have the legacy devices of Windows to contend with. Having major bugs missed during the launch of this update hasn’t helped the discussion either. The other side of the coin is that even with yearly updates, these bugs still could have been missed.
Major bugs aside, and now hopefully fixed, the Windows 10 October 2018 Update provides really useful new features, and three years in, that’s really all we can ask for.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
86 Comments
View All Comments
haukionkannel - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
That is so true. But they can now play with this new toy and in two or three years from now, we may actually see ten or more games to use it! And after that some more...New trend has to be started one day. But early bird in this case may not to be the best place to bee. The second or third generation of ray tracing cards will be a heck of lot better in ray tracing than these and there will be more of them. Then we will have Nvidia, Intel and AMD competing the best ray tracing card title and also hopefully some price competition too!
Mr Perfect - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
That's true, but I'm still curious to see if Raytacing is worthwhile from a graphical point.That and if the RTX cards are crap at pumping out rays, then maybe the pricing will come back down to earth. So far the high prices are sort of justified by this big mythical feature that no one can verify.
Martijn ter Haar - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Yup. The Battlefield V is the first game where raytracing can be enabled, albeit only for reflections. There's still some bugs though. Hardware Unboxed has a video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpZmH0_1gWQhoutek - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
this OS has been buggy for decades. After spending three days on the phone with HP, and reinstalling Win 10 at least twice, i'm done. I had a high end HP laptop with a unreliable OS. I wiped the hard drive, installed Ubuntu Linux, immediately got $200 in refunds on Windows support utilities, never looked back.Spunjji - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
This OS hasn't been out for decades. Next troll, please.MonkeyPaw - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
Refunds for support utilities? What support utilities?PeachNCream - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
While I totally support your decision to switch to Linux and would encourage people that are interested in something other than Windows to give it a try, my experiences with Win10 haven't been like that. I use it at work on a daily basis with very few problems. I use Linux at home on a daily basis, also with very few problems. Every modern operating system will have bugs regardless of whether or not you go with something open or closed source. I've run into a variety of mostly minor issues Linux since picking up shop and moving to it so I'd hardly call it a perfect experience. Mint Tara, version 19 and the latest from the Mint team, has resolved some instability with Audacity I've been experiencing while making recordings for video production so I'm a pretty happy clam at the moment. I would argue that it runs neck-and-neck with 10 (or at least so close that there isn't a notable difference) in terms of reliability which is to say that both operating systems are quite usable and each has its own set of pros and cons.haukionkannel - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
Yep. I have has much less problems with win10 than I did have with win7. Win7 was quite nice at the end of its career, but all in all win 10 has been more stable operation system to me.On worst nitpick is that win10 has to keep so much legacy support in it that many setting are too numerous places (so that old programs can also work in it...) But stability has clearly been quite good. I did reinstall win 7 4-5 times. Win 10 I have not installed it again a single time. But it is all up how lucky you get with hardware vs firmware, vs software lottery that is quite excessive in windows machines.
Targon - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
Talking to clueless support reps in India or wherever that only read from a script and expecting THEM to be able to help you just shows you should have checked online first for help. Windows 10 has been fairly solid for over a year now, even with the bugs that only apply to .05 percent of the user base.The big 1809 problem was due to people who redirected Documents for example to point to another directory instead of c:\users\USERNAME\Documents. If you had set up a proper JUNCTION link in the filesystem to do the job, it wouldn't have been a problem as well.
Laitainion - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Given that redirection is redirection is the only method exposed via the gui and not working across hard discs/partitions I don't think that's entirely fair. I find it quite reasonable that Microsoft check the use-cases that they expose for people to use than expect people to use a method that isn't.