Microsoft stealthily installs Windows 10 update to nag you to upgrade to Windows 11 – and not for the first time

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• A new patch is being quietly pushed to Windows 10 (and 11) PCs
• It’ll force upgrades in certain circumstances to keep the PC in support
• This update will mean more nag prompts coming to your PC

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Windows 10 users – and those running an out-of-date version of Windows 11 – are getting an update stealthily pushed to their PCs that will allow Microsoft to force a future update to the OS (to keep it in support), and also to nag users about support running out, too.

Neowin spotted the deployment of patch KB5001716, which the site notes has been quietly installed on Windows 10 PCs following the release of the October cumulative update. (It was also pushed to Windows 11 version 21H2 devices, which ran out of support over a year ago).

The patch is an update for Windows Update, essentially, and Microsoft notes: “When this update is installed, Windows may attempt to download and install feature updates to your device if it is approaching or has reached the end of support for your currently installed Windows version.”

Microsoft also observes: “After this update is installed, Windows may periodically display a notification informing you of problems that may prevent Windows Update from keeping your device up-to-date and protected against current threats.”

This means that KB5001716 will allow notifications to be presented to Windows 10 (and 11) users telling them that their device is running an unsupported version of Windows that is past its sell-by date for updates and is therefore insecure. For Windows 10 users, this likely translates into further badgering to move to Windows 11.

In some cases, given the first point Microsoft notes, the update may also be forced on your PC (eventually), as we see happening when any given version of Windows 10 or 11 runs out of road and is no longer supported for further upgrades.

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Analysis: Repeat performance – the odd history of KB5001716

What Microsoft is doing here is trying to keep your device secure, so in some ways, it’s a perfectly understandable measure. As you may recall, Windows 10 has less than a year of support left now.

However, there are problems with the approach here: namely the stealthy way in which the update turns up on PCs. After checking for updates, this one seemingly just lands on your system – boom – without any warning.

What’s also odd is that if you search for KB5001716 on the web, you’ll find that there’s a history of this update mysteriously appearing on PCs. As reported on various forums such as Reddit, KB5001716 turned up in April 2024, and was piped to PCs before that in October 2023 as well.

What gives? That’s a good question. Presumably, these are revisions of KB5001716 – tweaked updates – that are being redelivered to Windows 10 (and 11) PCs. However, in some cases in the past, there were errors caused by the reinstallation, which seemingly conflicted with previous installs of the patch in some way. If you’ve recently got a message that KB5001716 failed to install on your PC, this is likely to be what’s happened.

The apparent cure for those scenarios is to go to the Windows Update page (in Settings) and click on View update history, then click on Uninstall updates at the top of the panel. Now, scroll back to find the previously installed KB5001716, then select and remove it. Reboot, head back to Windows Update, and check for updates again – whereupon the latest version of KB5001716 (for October 2024) should install okay (hopefully).

There’s seemingly no getting around this update, as it is a necessary upgrade for Windows Update (it’s possible that it may do other things in the background, too, apart from the reminders to upgrade and everything else mentioned in the support notes).

We should clarify that this won’t force a Windows 11 upgrade on a Windows 10 PC which isn’t compatible with the stricter requirements for the newest OS – but it’ll likely continue to nag you about upgrading (for your own good, Microsoft would obviously argue).

Indeed, we’d be surprised if it fired up any upgrade for Windows 11 automatically, even if the PC in question was compatible – but, we guess, perhaps this could happen. Normally forced upgrades are for feature updates, though, meaning new versions of your current operating system, like 24H2 which recently arrived as this year’s annual update for Windows 11. Migrating to a whole new OS, like jumping from Windows 10 to 11, is a much bigger move.

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