It's been a few days since Microsoft announced the availability of the October 2020 update for Windows 10, and so far things have been relatively quiet. That's a good thing. The last time Microsoft pushed a major October update was in 2018, and it didn't go over very well initially. This time around, there doesn't seem to be much of a problem. [Given the nearly endless combinations of hardware, software, and drivers that Microsoft has to consider, there is no avoiding it. Nevertheless, the list of known problems this time is encouragingly small.

Microsoft lists only four known issues related to the October 2020 update, one of which is "resolved" and another "mitigated." This is the official list:

As far as Microsoft's own list is concerned, some Conexant audio drivers are the main cause of potential headaches in the October 2020 update, in some cases even crashing the PC with blue screen errors There are.

This is in contrast to the October 2018 update, which caused many problems early on, including users reporting missing files after the update. Microsoft actually had to take the update offline for a bit before reissuing it more than a month later.

To Microsoft's credit, it has gotten a little smarter about how it distributes major Windows 10 updates. Recently, they have taken a "careful and incremental rollout approach," prioritizing PCs that meet certain criteria that indicate they are less likely to experience problems based on a fancy machine learning model. It took nearly two months for my main PC to reflect the May 2020 update.

If you are not comfortable installing the October 2020 update, you can have Windows Update manually check if it is available for your PC by going to Settings > Update and Security > Windows Update and clicking on "Check for Updates". to have Windows Update check to see if it is available on your PC. This may show it to you. If it does not, you can force the issue by clicking the "Update Now" button on Microsoft's "Download Windows 10" page and downloading the Update Assistant.

Instead, we recommend that you wait patiently. Otherwise, the next best thing is to back up all important data before forcing the upgrade.