The Ghost of Windows 10 Version 1809

The Ghost of Windows 10 Version 1809

The ghost of Windows 10 version 1809 started by haunting those who dared to install it when it was first released. And it continues to haunt nearly two-thirds of all Windows 10 users, most of which will never get the update. But there’s nothing to worry about. Read on to learn why…

In the past couple of weeks, we have received a great many emails from people who are using Windows 10 version 1803 who are getting messages from Windows Update that they are up to date. This despite the fact that version 1809 – or the so-called October 2018 Update – was originally released on October 5, 2019. It lived for 5 days, and according to a substantial number of early adopters, caused them to lose personal data during the update procedure. There were enough complaints that Microsoft yanked the update after five haunted days.

After Microsoft made some substantial changes to version 1809 and re-released it on November 13, 2018. So, though version 1809 is officially known as the October 2018 Update, it wasn’t really released until November; and Microsoft wonders why people get confused.

Fast forward to now. It’s now the 24th day of March in the year 2019, and almost six months have passed since the initial release of version 1809. So, you’d think just about everyone would have by now, right?

The facts tell a strange tale of the update we called the “haunted update”. Microsoft in its urgency, released version 1809 before it was ready – or so it would seem – on October 5, 2018. Then, after too many complaints of very serious problems, pulled the haunted update, fixed the worst of the problems with it and then and re-released it some six-and-a-half weeks later. 

But Version 1803 users are up-to-date and in the majority

According to Windows expert, Paul Thurrott, as of February 28, 2019, version 1809 had been installed on just about 20% of all Windows 10 computers. As of mid-March, version, 1809 was installed on just over one-quarter of all Windows 10 computers. We’ll be generous and say that by the end of March, that about one-third of all Windows 10 users will be running Windows 10 version 1809. That means about two-thirds of Windows 10 users are still using version 1803 – also known as the Windows 10 April 2018 update.

And here’s the interesting part. Microsoft is scheduled to release version 1903 tentatively called the “April 2019 Update” within the next six to eight weeks.

So now just about everyone is confused how Windows 10 Windows Update can tell Windows 10 version 1809 users that they’re up-to-date though they are now on the cusp of being two version updates behind.

Windows 10 October 2018 Update – version 1809 – has been haunted by problems since its release early last October.  After being pulled and put on a six-plus week hiatus, it was re-released via the slow lane by Microsoft on November 13, 2018. So to us, it looks like most Windows 10 users will never see the ghost of version 1809. Instead, they’ll be updating to version 1903, thus skipping version 1809 altogether.

Don’t worry!

Windows 10 version 1809 is not a prerequisite for installing version 1903. If you have not received Windows 10 version 1809 update via Windows 10 update, don’t worry – be happy. There is no need to install it in order to get Windows 10 version 1903 update when it’s release.  And hopefully (and with fingers crossed), Microsoft will not dare repeat the release debacle of Windows 10 version 1809.   So, most of you should be happily using Windows 10 version 1903 by this summer without ever having installed version 1809.

We’ll be covering some of the new features in Windows 10 version 1903 in the very near future. In the meantime, if you’re still using Windows 10 April 2018 Update (version 1803), you’re not out-of-date, you’re in the majority.

One more thing. If you want to see what version of Windows 10, just type WINVER in taskbar search and press Enter.

Note: This article is for Windows 10 users who still have Windows 10 version 1803 and are wondering why they don’t have version 1809 and if they can be up-to-date without it as Microsoft is telling them.

Keep in mind that over one-third of Windows 10 users do have Windows 10 Version 1809 and most are not having any problems. One-third of 800 million users is about 250 million  – and that’s a lot of users. If you’re using Windows 10 version 1809, that’s great.  You too will be updated to version 1903 when it comes out this spring.