20180927: New desktop icon

What changed

Yesterday, we prematurely delivered a new desktop icon as a planned enhancement–please accept our apologies for any surprises this caused.

This new desktop icon is named ‘Upgrade Windows to current version‘. Depending on screen resolution and font choices on your computer, this name may be shortened. If you don’t see this icon, you likely will in the near future.

New feature

This icon allows any managed workstation which is not running the latest Windows 10 release, to upgrade to the latest Windows 10 release. It is very similar to the icon we delivered in January 2017, for upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10, but it allows you to manually initiate an update from one Windows 10 feature release to the latest.

We are still working on another desired feature of this icon–that it only appear on computers which are not already running the latest Windows 10 release. The intention being that you will know you aren’t on the latest version when you see the icon appear. That feature has not yet been completed, but we’ll continue to work on that.

This feature is part of an overhaul of our approach to keeping Windows updated. We’ll have more to share about that in the near future.

What to expect

If you manually upgrade, you should be prepared for some interruption of service. Windows 10 feature upgrades are not as lengthy as the upgrade from Windows 7. When the computer restarts, there will be a period of time when your computer is not usable. That period is generally 10-30 minutes on current computers, but could be longer.

Brian Arkills
Managed Workstation service owner and manager
UW-IT