Online Petition Begs Microsoft To Release Patch Notes For Windows 10

An online petition started back in August now has “Thousands of corporate tech admins” voicing their disagreement with Microsoft’s decision to no longer give detailed descriptions on Windows 10 updates.

Redmond based tech giant Microsoft has found itself under renewed pressure to release more information on its Windows 10 updates for IT professionals. At present Microsoft only divulges official documentation for Windows security updates. Non security updates on the other hand get nothing.

Windows 10 has received several updates since its official release. But even for IT pros, it’s unclear just what was in any of the cumulative updates contain or what they are supposed to have fixed. Several of the updates have simply had the words “improvements to enhance the functionality of Windows 10.”

IT Pros frustrated by lack of disclosure

Needless to say, many are unhappy with the lack of clarification. The online petition argues that Microsoft’s new way of releasing updates makes it virtually impossible for IT departments to know if system affecting bugs have been fixed or not in new Windows builds, claiming that IT Pros are becoming dependent on “community word of mouth” for system management.

This in itself has given many in the industry concern over system security because it means IT administrators are more likely  to disable the Windows Update Service until they are sure what changes have been made in each update.

Microsoft have announced that going forward they “might” provide more communication to IT departments in regard to patch notes, but as of the time of writing, no timeline has been declared. The question then is why Microsoft wouldn’t release such information to everyone.

Is it that important?

There is a valid argument that many users of Windows 10 will of course never actually read bug fix notes, and why would they. As long as their Windows 10 device works after each update, they will be none the wiser, and just as happy or as miserable as they were before. But for more advanced users, patch and update notes are almost a necessity. It’s not just the tech heads in large companies that are affected by the lack of disclosure by Microsoft. A friend of this writer who is a self-employed computer tech, described Microsoft’s new policy as a ‘curse,’ and ‘bloody annoying.’

Microsoft’s reluctance to release substantive patch notes seems to become even more absurd with the news this week that Microsoft do “actually create release notes for some, if not all, builds” of Windows 10. On Monday, leaked documents containing the release notes for Windows 10 build 10540 began to make their way around the Web. Whilst obviously unintended for the general public, it proves that the information that many in the industry are crying out for is there.