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
Shell Updates and More
File Explorer Dark Mode
Windows 10 has offered a Dark Mode for quite a while now, but as with everything Windows, the legacy bits can take a while to clean up. But with the October 2018 Update, users using the Dark Mode setting will now also see the new dark mode in Windows Explorer.
Home Screen
The Home Screen has also gotten an updated look, and new functionality. You can easily open TimeLine from within the Home Screen, and searches within here offer previews for apps, documents, email, people, and more. You can also more easily filter searches for web results versus documents or files, and the preview pane lets you get a better feel for what you’ve found, showing modified dates and more.
Registry Editor
For those that love Regedit, the extra functionality of being able to type in a location has been improved with a dropdown that fills in as you type, and you can now do Ctrl + Backspace to delete the last word for easier navigation, or Ctrl + Delete to delete the next word.
Biometric Remote Desktop Sign-In
Windows 10 1809 also brings biometric login support for Remote Desktop when authentication to a VM over Active Directory or Azure Active Directory.
Wireless Projection
There’s also updates to wireless projection, to improve the experience across multiple scenarios. There’s now a control banner on the host device to let you set and configure the wireless display projection, and there’s three settings you can choose:
- Game Mode: minimizes the screen-to-screen latency to make gaming over a wireless connection possible
- Video Mode: increases the screen-to-screen latency to ensure the video on the big screen plays back smoothly
- Productivity Mode: strikes a balance between game mode and video mode; the screen-to screen-latency is responsive enough that typing feels natural, while ensuring videos don’t glitch as often.
Storage Sense
Storage Sense is the feature that helps keep Windows clean, and in previous updates it’s gained the ability to empty your recycle bin or delete files in Downloads. New to 1809 is the ability to mark content as online-only in OneDrive if you not opened it for between 1 and 60 days, or never. For those on small SSDs, it should help keeping some space available.
Task Manager
The Task Manager now offers columns showing an applications power usage, and it’s power usage trend, so you can use it to track down where all your battery has gone
Fonts
New to 1809 is the ability to install fonts from the Windows Store with no admin rights needed, or to install fonts on a per-user basis where admin rights also won’t be needed.
HDR and Wide Color Gamut Updates
If your display offers HDR and Wide Color Support, you enable support for video, HDR games and apps, and Wide Color apps in the new Windows HD Color Settings menu under Display properties. There’s a preview video as well so you can test the changes quickly. HDR still seems to be in its infancy on the PC, but with more displays now offering HDR it won’t be too long before it becomes more mainstream like it is in the TV industry.
86 Comments
View All Comments
Makaveli - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Maybe not. So my Laptop is fine but my Desktop will freeze after installing the update at the windows logo. Rebooting the machine reverts back to 1709 so still a problem here.automator_devops - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Funny you should mention dark mode... when will this site get one?0ldman79 - Saturday, November 17, 2018 - link
To be fair, I had issues on 4 out of 5 machines with 1607 and 1709.I ran fast track updates to get off of those builds as quickly as possible on my laptop and rolled back my desktops and prevented those updates all together.
Microsoft's track record is not as good as it would appear on the surface. We had a lot of customers roll through the shop with similar problems. 1709 was buggy as hell until several updates came through almost two months later.
printersupportcare - Monday, November 19, 2018 - link
friendly executives help professionally with best solutions. Keep posting<a href="http://www.onsiteassistances.com/printer-support&q... printer customer service number</a>
thetuna - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
"hopefully this fixes the long-standing bug with Windows 10 where it wouldn’t always copy when you do Ctrl C"So it's not just me!
I thought I was going insane...
HikariWS - Friday, December 7, 2018 - link
Marketing Win10 as a service is really hurting us customers.By that M$ claims that we're not buying the licence to use the software, but we're buying the service of a operating system and M$ is allowing us to install the software so they can provide that service.
This slight change makes M$ force us to update Win10 even if we don't wanna, so that they keep providing the service.
In my home server, Win10 was working fine, until I was forced to update it to 1709. Now I have a huge memory leak issue that makes Win10 crash in less then 24, unless I reboot it, every day. I can't just restore its backup, because it just forces me to restart and it updates itself again.
We'd expect that this new update method, even more by merging all patches on a monthly update, would make Win10 more stable and the update more reliable. But what we see is exactly the opposite. Ever since Win98 I don't have OS memory leaks and don't need to reboot a PC on a daily manner.