Microsoft has no plans to tell us what’s in Windows patches

Microsoft has now released three cumulative updates for Windows 10. These updates combine security fixes with non-security bug fixes, and so far, Microsoft hasn't done a very good job of describing the contents of these cumulative updates. While the security content is quite fully described, explanations of the non-security fixes have been lacking.

Many, including your author, feel that this is undesirable, and that a key part of the Windows-as-a-Service concept, in which Microsoft releases a steady stream of fixes and functional improvements, is clear explanation of what those updates are. This is a new approach for Microsoft, and reassuring users and administrators that issues are getting fixed—and that functional changes are clearly described—seems like it should be important.

This is doubly important in those unfortunate situations that a patch has a problem. Microsoft will tend to update such patches when the problems have been fixed, but does a poor job of clearly communicating this.