Once you get past the confusing name, the latest Windows 10 feature update has a lot to offer. Here’s what administrators, developers, and the rest of us can expect, plus details on how you can install or delay the update.

It’s early 2020, and Microsoft is about to release… Windows 10 version 2004? No, that’s not a typo, and no, we have not passed through some weird time warp to the previous decade.

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Microsoft’s latest Windows 10 feature update follows the same yymm naming syntax as its predecessors (versions 1809, 1903, 1909, and so on). Microsoft targeted version 2004 for general release in April 2020 (yy=20, mm=04), making the confusing name inevitable. And let’s not even talk about the even more baffling version 2009 or 2010, which will arrive in the second half of 2020.

Anyway, the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, version 2004, build 19041.208, is now available for developers to download, after a lengthy Windows Insider Program test cycle, as my colleague Mary Jo Foley reports. (See “Microsoft kicks off its Windows 10 May 2020 update rollout with its release to developers.”) The final release should be available to the general public by the end of May.  

Confusing names aside, this feature update has a lot to recommend it. Under the new Windows Update rules, version 2004 is optional on a PC that’s already running either of the 2019 feature updates. (For details, see “When will you get the next version of Windows 10? Here’s how to take control.”)

Version 2004, formerly known as version 20H1, has been available in a preview release for a long, long time — more than a full year, in fact. It’s been feature complete since Dec. 10, 2019. You’ll be able to install the public release from Windows Update when it’s offered to your PC, or you can go to the Download Windows 10 page, where it will shortly replace the November 2019 Update. The official documentation should lose the preview tag shortly as well.

Note that some of the features Microsoft listed in that document as coming in the version 2004 feature update are already here, at least based on my tests with a PC running Windows 10 version 1909. That list includes new features in the Calculator app, including an Always on Top option, as well as big changes in the Your Phone app (with the biggest changes available for owners of Android phones).

Updates to version 1909 also preview substantial changes to Cortana, separating it completely from Windows Search. You can see other changes to Windows Search in the File Explorer search box, and Microsoft says it has fine-tuned disk usage by the Windows Search indexer to deal with longstanding complaints that the indexer can be too aggressive.

The final preview release also includes a new line under the Windows Specifications setting on the System > About page. There, beneath the OS Build number, you’ll find revision information for the new Windows Feature Experience Pack. More on that later.

Here’s my summary of the remaining changes, based on hands-on testing with near-final preview releases. I’ll update this post after installing the public release, if I see any significant differences.

For administrators only

Windows 10 users finally get an option that Mac users have had for years. Beginning with version 2004, the Reset This PC feature includes an option to download setup files from the cloud instead of using the local installation files. On systems with fast internet connections, this option should make the reset process quicker and cleaner.

On devices that include Windows Hello biometric authentication (facial recognition or fingerprint) with Microsoft accounts, administrators can remove the option to sign in with a password and allow signing in only with the biometric feature or a Windows Hello PIN. (Note that a PIN can be longer than four characters and can include letters and symbols as well as numbers, making it effectively a local password that is never shared over the network.)