What You Need To Know About Update 2004

The rollout of Windows 10 2004 update has been completed and should be available on most Windows 10 machines. At this stage the 2004 update remains optional — that is, the user has to initiate the update — and pretty much all machines that previously reported as “not quite ready” should now be in a position to accept the update. As reported in an earlier article, I recently updated my main Windows 10 machine to 2004 and I am happy and somewhat relieved to say that all seems fine. However, here are a few things you need to be aware of, purely from my own firsthand experience.

2004 Update And Windows Live Mail

Yes, I’m still using Windows Live Mail. Probably a bit silly on my part, seeing how the email client hasn’t been under development for such a long time, but I have never come across anything as suitable for my own requirements. As reported in an earlier article, the 2004 update breaks Windows Live Mail. However, there is a solution. So, if you’re a Windows Live Mail user and:

1. have updated to 2004 and struck problems… or
2. are considering updating to 2004 in the near future

You need to read the following article to learn how to fix Windows Live Mail: Windows Live Mail Error 0X800C013E After Update 2004 – Solved

2004 Update And SSDs

As you may be aware, SSDs are optimized as part of Windows’ regular scheduled maintenance process. However, the 2004 update creates a strange issue with SSDs whereby the drive is always marked as not having been optimized, even though it has been.

This in itself is not a problem. However, each time the system is restarted, Windows sees the drive as not optimized and goes through the optimization process again. If you tend to restart the system on a fairly regular basis, this could cause unnecessary wear and potentially shorten the SSD’s lifespan. The good news is that Microsoft has now issued an update (KB4571756) which fixes this bug. The bug fix was delivered on my machine as part of a cumulative update:

So, if you’ve updated to 2004 and are using an SSD you need to make sure update KB4571756 has also been installed. Go to Control Panel > Programs and Features and click View installed updates in the left-hand panel. From there, type KB4571756 into the Search box and hit Enter:

If KB4571756 is listed in the results, all good. If not, I suggest you go to Windows Update and click Check for updates. The cumulative update can also be downloaded manually: Microsoft Update Catalogue KB4571756

Update 2004 And Windows.old

As is the case with all operating system new builds, installing update 2004 will create a Windows.old folder in the root of your system (C) drive. This folder contains all files required in case you need to roll back to the previous Windows 10 build and can be quite large– on my system, it is 30+ GB large. The folder will automatically be deleted after one month so it’s of little concern if your drive has plenty of free space. However, if free space is tight, you might want to delete this folder earlier. You cannot merely delete the folder in File Explorer, it needs to be done via the Disk Cleanup tool– read: The Right Way To Delete the Windows.old Folder

NOTE: Please make sure there are zero issues with the update prior to deleting the Windows.old folder. Once you delete this folder, you will not be able to roll back.

That’s about it for now. I’ll report back if any other issues crop up.

Have you updated to 2004 yet? If so, how was your experience?

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