Microsoft’s next Windows 10 release 2004 is just about cooked and ready to face the world. Version 2004 is scheduled for general release in April 2020, marketing the confusion name inevitable. Confusing names aside, this features update has a lot to recommend it. It is important to remember that Windows is about more than the user interface. An OS used by nearly a billion people is not always going to driver updates that make your life easier. But you can be sure that they will be welcomed by a substantial portion of that enormous user base.
WSL 2 and Windows developers
The Windows Subsystem for Linux is about to get its biggest change yet, moving from a transaction layer that converted Linux system calls to Windows systems calls, to a virtual machine running Microsoft’s own Linux kernel while still linking Linux and Windows file systems. Windows 10’s incremental approach to development means that many changes were not obvious. WSL 2 is still running from the Windows Terminal, with the new kernel making it more compatible with Linux binaries. The only real issue is a change in how it uses shared networking, which makes it harder to run Linux applications.
Updates and Installation
If you have deleted your Windows recovery files partition to save space, 2004 can help with device reset. You will be able to download the necessary files from the cloud. Security remains an important aspect of Windows updates, and Microsoft has been working on ways to reduce its dependencies on passwords. Usefully, Microsoft is making the option to restart apps you were running before you restarted Windows easier to find.
Networking and system
Pairing Bluetooth hardware can be issued, and Microsoft is trying to simplify the process in this Windows release. If you have Bluetooth hardware that supports Microsoft Swift pairs, put the device in Pairing mode, bring it close to your PC, and you get a notification popup that shows the device that’s trying to pair. Wireless and wired networks get some tweaks too with more useful network status information. Microsoft is providing updates that help with Windows graphics and modern GPUs.
