The Windows 10 April 2018 Update, also known as Version 1803, has been out and available for users for around 4 months now, so it's time to check in and see how things have improved in regards to early bugs and performance issues that were plaguing users when the update was first made available. I was hit pretty hard with several issues surrounding Bluetooth, graphics cards, and lag when the April Update first launched, and I know I wasn't the only one suffering from problems like this.
In fact, for a little while after the update was made available, it was pretty apparent that Version 1803 was one of the buggier Windows 10 releases we've had. After a delay of three weeks due to a blocking bug, Version 1803 was released to the world and was plagued with launch day issues, some of which saw upgrade partitions shout at the user about low-storage, to SSD incompatibility problems, to devices not seeing graphics. It was all going on, and it was bad.
Now, of course, not everyone suffered from these issues. In fact, I'd say most people had very few problems with Version 1803, but there was a larger than usual percentage of people complaining online about bugs with this release. Some of the initial growing pains were ironed out in patches, but it took way longer than it should've for some devices like the Surface Book 2 to get fixed. I had several issues with mine, including lag when closing UWP apps, and my graphics card sometimes not showing up in Device Manager.
Windows 10 1803 common problems and how to fix them
In fact, it got so bad, at one point I had to disable my graphics card in Device Manager just so I could use my Surface Book 2. This issue lasted about two months before Microsoft releases patches and firmware updates to solve the problem. Frankly, I thought this was unacceptable. Smaller issues, such as the Bluetooth disconnect issues I was having on the Surface Studio were ghost fixed without me seemingly needing to install any updates (maybe it did, but I didn't see it.)
There's no hiding it. Version 1803 was definitely buggier than normal at launch. Even today, silly performance issues continue to plague the OS, including dropped frames when opening Timeline to Acrylic affects taking a second to load when opening something like Start. Microsoft needs to fine-tune a lot of these features, which I believe is being done with the next Windows 10 update, known as Version 1809 coming in October.
Unfortunately, for me, that's way too long between releases to fix issues like this. If an animation is not smooth, then that feature should not be shipping until it is. It just looks terrible and makes your PC feel slow. Opening Timeline initiates an animation that plays about three frames total, which is awful.
Things have improved
Overall, the Windows 10 April 2018 Update has improved a lot since it first launched. Most of the initial bugs and issues have been resolved through patches, with the only issues left that I can notice being laggy when it comes to system animations. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there stuff suffering from problems, but for the most part, a lot of the initial issues are fixed.
I just hope that the next Windows 10 update doesn't launch with as many bugs and lack of polish that Version 1803 started with.
