Spring is one of the two seasons of the year when Microsoft usually releases a new feature update for Windows 10, and that means we should be appearing for another one soon. Microsoft has been testing the next feature update for some time now – known as version 21H1 – and it should not be too long before it is publicly available. As such, it’s time for another summary of what’s new in this update, but before we get into that, you may want to check out all the changes made in previous Windows 10 updates:
To move to version 21H1, some background is required here. Over the past few years, Microsoft has introduced a major feature update in the spring (see versions 1903 and 2004) and a smaller update focused on refinements and minor improvements in the fall (versions 1909 and 20H2). These updates are delivered through activation packages, which means that the actual bits in the fall updates are the same as the spring update, but they have an activation package that turns on certain features. The spring and fall updates receive even the exact same cumulative updates every month.
This time, however, the spring update – version 21H1 – is another update package, which means that it only lights up certain changes that were already hidden in version 2004 and 20H2. In fact, it’s the smallest feature update Windows 10 has ever had, and it can hardly be considered a ‘feature update’. It’s just here to keep up with Microsoft’s usual time frame for these updates. What exactly is new?
Windows Hello
First, there are improvements to Windows Hello, so if you have a device with a Windows Hello camera built in, but you plug in another Windows Hello compatible camera, you can now set the external camera as the default for Windows Hello. verification. This can be useful, for example, if you buy a monitor with a built-in camera.
Windows Defender Application Guard
This update also includes performance enhancements for Windows Defender Application Guard (WDAG), including a solution to an issue where opening some Office documents may be delayed by more than one minute. This would happen if the file was accessed through a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path or a Server Message Block (SMB).
The performance of Robocopy is also improved when copying files larger than 400 MB. Finally, a problem where a WDAG container could use almost 1 GB of memory while it was empty.
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
Finally, Microsoft has made some improvements to the Group Policy Service in Windows Management Tools to adjust remote work scenarios. Previously, it may have taken some time for changes to spread to user or computer groups, which means that the results of changes to the group policy were not displayed when the administrator tried to generate a report.
Yes, that’s really all there is to this update, and you may have noticed that most of the changes have to do with remote work. Microsoft says it is not releasing a major feature update this spring due to COVID-19, and the updates it has done are intended to address the most urgent requests it has heard from its customers.
But another reason why there are no major features in this update is that Windows 10X would appear this spring, and Microsoft would focus on it. Microsoft is said to be saving big changes for the fall update, including a visual overhaul for Windows 10, codenamed Sun Valley. We recently saw some of the visual changes appearing in new buildings for Windows Insiders, such as new icons found in places like the Settings app, new icons in File Explorer, and a whole new touch keyboard experience.
Some recent reports have suggested that Windows 10X is also being delayed, and since Microsoft has not communicated anything about it, it is not entirely clear what will happen to Windows 10 this year.
For now, Windows 10 version 21H1 will be released soon, and even if it does not bring much that is new, it should at least be safe to install, as it does not bring any major changes. Microsoft does say that version 21H1 will remove the Edge Legacy browser from the operating system, but in reality it will also be removed in April with a cumulative update of older versions of Windows 10.
Are you planning to install Windows 10 version 21H1 as soon as it becomes available? Let us know in the comments.