We’re closing in on then end of May 2019, which means patch cycles for various software makers are kicking into overdrive. And that applies to software and hardware giant Microsoft, as the Windows developer has released the major update to their flagship OS for the month of May 2019.
The big focus on this patch is mostly on performance, mostly by reworking different features, and by fixing a bunch of different bugs. It’s nice to see Microsoft taking security and system maintenance more seriously, especially after that kerfuffle over a major RCE flaw in older versions of Windows.
The first major change involves fixing previous bugs, mostly those introduced when Microsoft fixed the infamous Spectre bugs a while back. These changes should improve performance in Windows versions a little bit. These are the “retpoline” and “import optimization” fixes by the way. These patches were previously introduced as Spectre variant 2 mitigations (CVE-2017-5715), and are now backported to production versions of Windows and supported devices.
The second new aspect is the introduction of the Windows Health dashboard. This new aspect of system management bundles together troubleshooting, error tracking and general maintenance notifications and tools into a single bundle, making it easier for users to track and mitigate issues they may run into.
One new change is coming to Cortana and Search in Windows 10, the May 2019 update will separate these two features, improving the overall user experience and also slightly reducing the performance overhead of the related services. This update aims to give users more control of, and information about, upcoming software updates as well.
And as usual, just head over to Windows Update via Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update to download and install the newly launched patch.
