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How to Install the Windows 10 May 2020 Update if It's Missing - Lifehacker

Posted: 29 May 2020 06:05 AM PDT

Illustration for article titled How to Install the Windows 10 May 2020 Update if Its Missing — Screenshot: David Murphy

The Windows 10 May 2020 update is here, but it might not be here for you. Yes, it's another rollout. Yes, we typically recommend you hold off on installing major Windows 10 updates until plenty of other people have "tested" them to make sure you're not about to get hit with a horrific, performance-draining bug—but we understand many of you want those new features, stat.

So once you've backed up your critical files—at minimum—here are all the different ways you can install the Windows 10 May 2020 update, including a couple that will help you if Windows hasn't served it up to you directly just yet.

Method one: The easy way

Open up your Start menu, type "Windows Update," and select "Windows Update settings." Click on the big "Check for updates" button and download anything Microsoft wants you to install. The specific update you're looking for in this case is the "Feature update to Windows 10, version 2004," otherwise known as the Windows 10 May 2020 update.

There are three reasons why you might not see it:

It hasn't rolled out to you yet (sorry!)
You've already installed it and didn't realize it—click on "View update history" to find out.
There's some kind of incompatibility with your system and Microsoft is blocking you from receiving the update until it fixes the problem.

Assuming you're not in the latter camp—search for the phrase "compatibility hold" on Microsoft's page to see the various issues that might be preventing the update from installing—there are a few more techniques you can use to get your hands on the Windows 10 update if you can't find it in Windows Update.

Method two: The lesser-known way

Microsoft's Update Assistant for Windows 10

Here's a fun little trick if you can't get the major update you're looking for from Windows Update itself: Try downloading Microsoft's Update Assistant for Windows, which you'll find by clicking the blue "Update now" box on this page.

Run the Upgrade Assistant app and you should be able to download and install the Windows 10 May 2020 update without any issue. And don't worry: It won't overwrite your critical data or blank out your drive and reinstall a fresh Windows 10 copy.

Method three: The wilder way

If methods one and two don't work, and you feel you absolutely must have access to the Windows 10 May 2020 update right now—perhaps you really hate Cortana?—there's another approach you can take. Download the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool from the same site as before (the "Download tool now" button). You can use it to upgrade your PC, much like the aforementioned Update Assistant. You can also use it to download a Windows 10 .ISO and then create a bootable flash drive and clean-install Windows 10 on your system.

A word of warning: This method will overwrite all your files and everything you've installed. So, for most people, the "upgrade" option is probably best. Again, make sure you've backed up your files before doing this just in case Windows doesn't save what you need when you perform the upgrade. If this trick doesn't get you the latest version of Windows, perhaps you'll have better luck with the clean installation method—at the cost of reinstalling all your stuff.

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Google and Microsoft worked together to improve spellcheck in Chrome and Edge - The Verge

Posted: 28 May 2020 03:28 PM PDT

Google and Microsoft have worked together to improve the spellcheck experience in Chrome and Edge. The latest versions of Chrome and Edge are now powered by the built-in Windows Spellcheck feature rather than the previous Hunspell open source implementation. The switch means spellcheck within Chrome and Edge will now have better support for URLs, acronyms, email addresses, and an improved shared custom dictionary.

"This feature was developed as a collaboration between Google and Microsoft engineers in the Chromium project, enabling all Chromium-based browsers to benefit from Windows Spellcheck integration," explains Microsoft's Edge team.

If you're not seeing the new spellcheck support show up in Chrome, then you may need to enable a flag to get it straight away. Head to chrome://flags/ and search for "Use the Windows OS spell checker" and enable this setting and restart Chrome.

Microsoft has been contributing to Chromium and helping improve both Edge and Chrome ever since its surprise decision to switch to Chromium last year. While there have been hundreds of commits, user-facing changes aren't always obvious like this.

We previously saw Microsoft helping Google improve Chrome's tab management back in January, and Microsoft is also working to improve scrolling in Chromium with bounce effects and percentage-based scrolling.

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