Windows 10 stable? (cue manic laughter ending in tears)
Windows 10 is not and likely never will be stable – it is designed as an evolving operating system that will constantly update itself and change. As an example of the evolution of Windows 10, build 1803 has now removed the ‘homegroup’ feature (which was pretty useless anyway). This evolution setup is causing massive headaches for the IT community and some are being forced to change to the LTSB version which only updates every 2-3 years.
Part of the issue is that while Windows 10 has specific ‘builds’ there are lots of interim updates which can also affect the smooth running of your system(s). Build info is here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows-10/release-information
To answer your specific question:
1803 (latest) seems to be OK as a fresh install but has ‘killed’ many upgraded machines meaning that they had to have 1803 installed as a complete new install to resurrect them.
The prior version (1709) wasn’t too bad.
IF you can spare the time and hassle, I’d think about a fresh install of 1803 coupled with bloat removal (there are some free Powershell scripts out there to do this) and then do as much as possible to switch off the updates (actually only defers them) – google is your friend here.
If you can’t do this, use 1709 again coupled with switching off updates and bloat removal.
Also, pick the most stable graphics driver you can find for your system. AMD drivers are a pain so I now only recommend NVidia graphics. Also follow the rest of the advice quoted about keeping your machine as clean as possible and stay well away from certain antivirus packages.
My least troublesome machines are i7, 8/16GB, SSD based systems with NVidia graphics and run either Windows 7, 8.1 or Win10 1709 with Microsoft antivirus, Microsoft Office, Malwarebytes AntiMalware (free version) and 2020 Design V11.8 or V11.10 and pretty much everything else removed. Printer drivers can also be troublesome especially if they are bloated so I try and run Windows native drivers wherever possible or remove the bloat from the manufacturers drivers.
Hope this helps.
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