What is New in the Windows 10 April 2018 Update for Enterprise Customers?

After initial difficulties, Microsoft officially released the next major Windows 10 update on April 30. The Windows 10 release 1803 introduces a number of new features that may not be relevant to enterprise customers. But they are also active on corporate PCs, after the installation of the release in most cases and need to be configured.

In a press release, Microsoft highlights four features of its new Windows 10 release. In addition to Timeline, a function that allows logging and tracing back activities and actions for 30 days, the Focus Assist feature provides a more advanced and more flexible version of the Quiet Hours function. By using the new dictation features in Windows 10, users are enabled to start voice input in any text field. Other important innovations are related to the Edge Browser. These include mute tabs, full-screen EPUBs and PDFs, and a new printing feature that can only output the content of a web page.

Of greater interest to enterprise customers is likely to be the availability of the Windows Defender Application Guard for the Pro Edition, introduced with Windows 10 version 1709; this was previously reserved for the Enterprise Edition. The Application Guard is a protection feature of the Edge Browser; running in a secured virtual machine, it protects against attacks from infected Web pages. A novelty in this version is that a user can now save downloaded files from the isolated environment to the host system.

Another novelty in Windows 10 version 1803 is a tool that reads out the diagnostic data that Microsoft collects from a system. With the Windows Diagnostic Data Viewer, users and administrators can see exactly what diagnostic data is sent to Microsoft.

The privacy settings for apps have also been enhanced. Settings now allow you to configure app permissions for the local storage location of documents, videos, and pictures. This makes it possible to limit access by apps from the Microsoft Store to the storage locations.

With the Windows S Mode, Microsoft makes another novelty available for enterprise customers. The software company had introduced a new edition of the operating system about a year ago, which can only run apps from the Microsoft Store and was intended for schools and educational institutions. This standalone edition will now be integrated into the operating system as a mode and will be available in all editions of Windows 10.

Windows 10 version 1803 also provides better support for Linux. As in Windows Server version 1803, Microsoft has integrated the two Linux commands "curl" and "tar" directly into the command line. For this, the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) in Windows 10 Version 1803 has been improved. On a computer with WSL installed, the local Windows installation can be accessed more flexibly from one instance. From the Windows subsystem for Linux, the Linux Docker client can now access the Windows Docker daemon directly.

Also new is a tool that accelerates the deployment of virtual machines in Hyper-V with Windows 10 version 1803. New VM images can be created using JSON documents and put together in galleries.

The worldwide distribution of Windows 10 version 1803 will take place on May 8 directly via Windows Update. Microsoft will provide 18 months of support for this release. In April, support for Windows 10 version 1607 was discontinued. Microsoft recommends that companies using this version should upgrade to version 1803, or at least to version 1703 or 1709.

Sources: Microsoft, ZDNet, WindowsPro