Windows 10 Update “May 2019 Update” will not be installed when ... USB drives and memory cards are connected to the PC

Microsoft TechPod warns that there may be problems installing the big May 10 Windows Update - May 2019 Update.

Reason: blocking the possibility of updating the system on devices with an external hard drive or flash drive (via USB), as well as with an inserted memory card in a card reader, if there is one on a PC / laptop.

If an update is started on a computer with external media connected, an error message will be displayed on the screen, the update process will stop, the update can be installed only after disconnecting all external drives.



Link to the article support.microsoft .

What is the problem with the upgrade?

A Microsoft support article says:
“During the upgrade to the May 2019 Update, incorrect drive reassignment may occur on the appropriate devices to which an external USB device or SD memory card is connected.”

Thus, if the user has a USB drive connected with the drive letter “D” assigned, then after updating to the “May 2019 Update” the letter could change, for example, to “E”.

The reason for the origin of such a possible reassignment is the incorrect operation of the disk reassignment mechanism during the upgrade.

And there is still such an interesting and frightening addition:
“The drive reassignment is not limited to removable drives. Internal hard drives can also be affected . ”

This is a very dangerous situation, which can cause some damage to some corporate systems that after the update will start to function incorrectly, and Microsoft just fixed the situation - they blocked the installation of the May update on PCs / laptops with external media connected.

Microsoft promised to release a fix for this problem in one of the following updates, but not at the end of May 2019, when it will be.

An interesting point here is that the distribution of the “Windows 10 May 2019 Update” update has not yet begun, and an article from support.microsoft warning of the problem has already appeared. Proactive methods are now in Microsoft.

It turns out that such a “May 2019 Update” update blocking will affect not all Windows 10 users, but only those who have updates installed:

• April 2018 Update (Windows 10, version 1803),
• October 2018 Update (Windows 10, version 1809).

There is a high probability that users with earlier versions of Windows 10 will be able to install the May 2019 Update without any problems.