Microsoft rolls out Windows 10’s November update

Microsoft this week began rolling out its Windows 10 November 2019 update, bringing Windows 10 up to version 1909. This update is a smaller one (especially compared to the Creators updates), but still contains a whole host of features and improvements.

Let's dive under the hood first. The Windows 10 1909 update brings "general battery life and power-efficiency improvements for PCs with certain processors," Microsoft says in the update notes. The update also adds a "rotation policy" to better distribute work among your processor's favored cores.

In terms of user-facing updates, Windows 10's November 2019 update offers a few worth highlighting. If you're done with Cortana but like talking to your computer, you can now enable third-party digital assistants to activate over the lock screen.

Interface improvements, too

This update also makes a few improvements to notifications. You can now disable notifications from an application or website right from the notification banner. The updates provides easier access to notification settings in general, too. You can also create calendar events straight from the calendar "flyout" on the taskbar by simply selecting a date and beginning to type.

The search box in Windows 10's File Explorer is seeing an update, too. The box will now use Windows Search to find files. The box is wider and will integrate with OneDrive.

Starting with Windows 10 1909, Microsoft's Narrator will learn the location of your keyboard's FN key and monitor whether it's locked or unlocked.

The features you don't see

A number of enterprise and OEM improvements accompany the update, too. These will be mostly invisible to day-to-day users. OEMs can now reduce inking latency based on a device-by-device basis rather than using the OS' default latency. Key-rolling/Key-rotation will improve password recovery for BitLocker devices. The update adds additional debugging capabilities for newer Intel CPUs.

Most of the features are easy to overlook. If you're on the right cocktail of hardware, though, you could see a performance boost and improvements to battery life.

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