Windows 10 Pro version 1909 Build 18363.752

The newly renamed 'Windows 10 November 2019 Update' is nearing release. But given the company's past naming conventions, it might not show up until November.

Microsoft now says the year's second Windows 10 feature upgrade would be released shortly and has given it the guileless name of "Windows 10 November 2019 Update."

"We believe that Build 18363.418 is the final build," Brandon LeBlanc, a senior program manager on the Windows Insider team, wrote in a Friday post to a company blog.

Also known as 1909 in Microsoft's four-digit yymm notation, this upgrade is notable for what it is not: It is not a feature upgrade as Microsoft has defined the term in the past. Instead, 1909 will be little more than a rerun of the spring's 1903, including all the fixes Microsoft has made to that version since its May debut, and a very small number of new features.

Pundits quickly drew comparisons to the "service packs" of Microsoft's past, when it would collect months or even years' worth of fixes for a version of Windows into a package that would quickly bring systems up to date. Others, including Computerworld have noted that the sparseness of 1909 means Microsoft is turning its twice-annual cadence into a major (spring) and minor (fall) tempo.

In July, Computerworld deciphered the Microsoft announcements that outlined how 1909 would be vastly different from the feature upgrades of the past. Among the most important changes: devices running 1903 will upgrade to 1909 using the same servicing mechanisms as do the monthly security updates.

Questions yet abound about 1909, even though Microsoft is close to launching the refresh. Four of the five still-open queries Computerworld posed last month, for example, have yet to be answered.

Although LeBlanc said, "We are now getting the Windows 10 November 2019 Update (19H2) ready for release," implying that 1909 would be launched shortly, Microsoft also stuck "November" in its name. When Microsoft has used a month in the name of a Windows 10 feature upgrade, it has used the month of release (as with 1803 and 1903, each released late in the month noted in their names) or a month prior to release (as with 1809). It has never delivered a feature upgrade earlier than the month in its name.

That pattern would argue that Microsoft will wait several or more weeks - until Nov. 1 or later - to start distributing 1909.

When Microsoft introduced the minor release it planned for the fall of 2019, it said it was "a September-targeted release of Windows." At the time, Computerworld believed Microsoft would easily meet that schedule because of the few new features or changes 1909 would contain. It is unclear why Microsoft was unable to make its own target for the launch given the paucity of new features.

The next feature update for Windows 10 (known in the Windows Insider Program as 19H2) will be a scoped set of features for select performance improvements, enterprise features, and quality enhancements. To deliver these updates in a less disruptive fashion, we will deliver this feature update in a new way, using servicing technology (like the monthly update process) for customers running the May 2019 Update who choose to update to the new release. When 19H2 is officially released, it will be referred to as “version 1909.”

The following new features are being introduced as part of this update.

- This update will be published to WSUS so that customers can deploy and manage Insider Preview builds alongside their standard ConfigMan/WSUS approach.
- We are offering pre-release support for 19H2 offered to Windows Insider Program for Business (WIP4Biz) customers who face blocking issues that prevent them from feature evaluation or device use.
- Windows containers require matched host and container version. This restricts customers and limits Windows containers from supporting mixed-version container pod scenarios This update includes 5 fixes to address this and allow the host to run down-level containers on up-level for process (Argon) isolation.
- A fix to allow OEMs to reduce the inking latency based on the hardware capabilities of their devices rather than being stuck with latency selected on typical hardware configuration by the OS.
- Key-rolling or Key-rotation feature enables secure rolling of Recovery passwords on MDM managed AAD devices upon on demand request from Microsoft Intune/MDM tools or upon every time recovery password is used to unlock the BitLocker protected drive. This feature will help prevent accidental recovery password disclosure as part of manual BitLocker drive unlock by users.
- A change to enable third-party digital assistants to voice activate above the Lock screen.
- You can now quickly create an event straight from the Calendar flyout on the Taskbar. Just select the date and time at the lower right corner of the Taskbar to open the Calendar flyout and pick your desired date and start typing in the text box–you’ll now see inline options to set a time and location.
- The navigation pane on the Start menu now expands when you hover over it with your mouse to better inform where clicking goes.
- We have added friendly images to show what is meant by “banner” and “Action Center” when adjusting the notifications on apps in order to make these settings more approachable and understandable.
- Notifications settings under Settings > System > Notifications will now default to sorting notification senders by most recently shown notification, rather than sender name. This makes it easier to find and configure frequent and recent senders. We have also added a setting to turn off playing sound when notifications appear.
- We now show the options to configure and turn off notifications from an app/website right on the notification, both as a banner and in Action Center.
- We have added a “Manage notifications” button to the top of Action Center that launches the main “Notifications & actions” Settings page.
- We have added additional debugging capabilities for newer Intel processors. This is only relevant for hardware manufacturers.
- We have made general battery life and power efficiency improvements for PCs with certain processors.
- A CPU may have multiple “favored” cores (logical processors of the highest available scheduling class). To provide better performance and reliability, we have implemented a rotation policy that distributes work more fairly among these favored cores.
- We have enabled Windows Defender Credential Guard for ARM64 devices for additional protection against credential theft for enterprises deploying ARM64 devices in their organizations.
- We have enabled the ability for enterprises to supplement the Windows 10 in S Mode policy to allow traditional Win32 (desktop) apps from Microsoft Intune.
- We’re updating the search box in File Explorer to now be powered by Windows Search. This change will help integrate your OneDrive content online with the traditional indexed results.
- We have added the ability for Narrator and other assistive technologies to read and learn where the FN key is located on keyboards and what state it is in (locked versus unlocked).

Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster.
RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB).
Free space on hard disk: 16 gigabytes (GB).
Graphics card: DirectX 9 graphics device or a newer version.
Additional requirements to use certain features.
To use touch you need a tablet or monitor that supports multitouch.
To access the Windows store to download and run apps, you need an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768 pixels.