Microsoft has started making Windows 10, version 1909 generally available through Windows Update as an optional update, as you can see in Figure 1. This just started happening on November 12. I have already seen it on multiple systems with both AMD and Intel processors. This is notable, because there was a substantial delay for AMD systems when Windows 10, version 1903 became available earlier this year.
Figure 1: Windows Update Offering Windows 10, version 1909
Unlike previous Windows 10 semi-annual feature updates, the installation of Version 1909 goes pretty quickly. Having a fast NVMe SSD or Intel Optane NVMe storage and a modern, fast processor still matters as far as installation speed goes, but it is much faster than it was in 1903 or earlier versions.
I also noticed that it does not need as much disk space, and does not generate as much extra file usage that needs to be cleaned up with the Windows Disk Cleanup utility. You will only see this faster, more streamlined update process if you are coming from Windows 10, version 1903, as explained here.
Figure 2 shows what you will see in WinVer after upgrading to 1909.
Figure 2: WinVer Output Showing Version 1909
Here is some initial information about the improvements in 1909:
These are the two most interesting improvements from that document:
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.
