Everyone deserves a rest over the Christmas period, and this includes big businesses like Microsoft. As such, the company has gone on record to say that, over the holiday 2020 period, you won’t see much in terms of Windows 10 updates.
What’s Stopping for the 2020 Holiday Period?
First up, if you’re a Windows Insider, don’t expect any fun additions over the next month or so. As the holidays approach, Microsoft plans to halt updates for Insider builds until 2021.
On the Microsoft Support website, the company states the following:
IMPORTANT Because of minimal operations during the holidays and the upcoming Western new year, there won’t be any preview releases for the month of December 2020. Monthly servicing will resume with the January 2021 security releases.
Second, the company will also put a pause on verifying drivers with a Microsoft stamp of approval. This will delay the time it takes for companies to get Windows-verified drivers released over the 2020 Christmas period.
As stated on the Microsoft Tech Community:
The last day to submit a driver to start rolling out in 2020 is December 3, 2020. […] Any driver that is paused December 18 or later will not be resumed before the beginning of the new year.
What About Other Kinds of Windows Updates?
Of course, there’s a lot more to Windows Updates than Insider builds and driver updates. Fortunately, it appears that Microsoft has no plans to put essential, security-based updates on the backburner.
Given how popular Windows is, Microsoft can’t afford to shut everything down during the holiday period. Cybercriminals are always looking for holes in Windows’ defenses, and if any crop up over the festive period, Microsoft needs to deliver a fix before too much damage is done.
As such, be sure to keep your computer updated over the Christmas holidays. This goes double if you get a new computer or laptop as a present; be sure to do all the essential tasks for a fresh Windows 10 install before you use it normally!
Updates On Hold for the Holidays
While Windows 10’s update won’t fully freeze over the holidays, don’t expect any Insider or driver updates during the Christmas period. Hopefully, we can get back to seeing some exciting Insider news once 2021 comes around.
Fortunately, there’s still plenty of new features to test out on the Insider build. For instance, owners of specific Samsung mobile devices can now run multiple phone apps on their PC using Windows 10’s Your Phone feature.
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