Microsoft recently released an optional update KB4535996 for Windows 10 Version 1909 and Version 1903. This update will not automatically install with Windows Update.
Instead, you will need to download and install it manually. In this article, we will discuss how to download and install KB4535996 and then we’ll discuss why this is an important update, its features, and issues.
Download KB4535996
There are two ways to download and install this update. Either you can use Windows Update or you can also directly download the offline installers of this update and install it manually. We will discuss both methods here.
Download KB4535996 using Windows Update
- Go to Windows Settings (Windows key + i) –> Update & Security –> Windows Update
- You will see the following entry:
2020-02 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1909 for x64-based Systems (KB4525996) - Click on Download and Install link
This will automatically download the update and install it for you. You will need to restart your computer to complete the installation process.
Download KB4535996 offline installers
If you do not want to use Windows Update or this update is not installing using Windows Update, you can manually download the update and then install it.
Go to the KB4535996 download catalog page.
The catalog page gives the following options related to Windows 10:
- 2020-02 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1909 for x86-based Systems (KB4535996)
- 2020-02 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1909 for x64-based Systems (KB4535996)
- 2020-02 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1909 for ARM64-based Systems (KB4535996)
- 2020-02 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1903 for ARM64-based Systems (KB4535996)
- 2020-02 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1903 for x86-based Systems (KB4535996)
- 2020-02 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1903 for x64-based Systems (KB4535996)
Just press the Download button according to your system configuration (32-bit, 64-bit or ARM64-based). This will download the .msu file. You can double-click the downloaded file to run the installer.
KB4535996 Major fixes and changes
It’s a huge but non-security update. Its emphasis is on delivering different fixes for the users.
You can skip it if you want because it will be offered as a part of the mandatory Microsoft Patch Tuesday release of next month. But the bugfixes mentioned on the KB4535996 support page are interesting enough that I would definitely recommend installing this update.
Although there are a lot of fixes mentioned on the support page, I will only list down the major ones here:
- Microsoft introduced modern standby mode support in Windows 10. The modern standby mode provides a smartphone-like always-connected experience on a Windows 10 laptop. Some users were complaining that it was causing their laptops to overheat when on standby. This update introduces a new version of modern standby for Windows 10 and will improve laptop battery performance.
- Fixing keyboard layout changes after restart
- Fixing printing bugs and issue which prevents apps from printing to some network printers.
- Fixed an issue in Microsoft browsers that might cause the browsers to bypass proxy servers. The browsers may include Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft Edge Chromium.
- Fixed a Group Policy issue that caused the policy “Allow uninstallation of language features when a language is uninstalled” from taking effect.
- Fixed a Windows Search box issue that prevented it from “rendering fully in the space allotted for it2. And also fixed an issue with Windows search that prevented from showing results.
- Fixed an issue with Network Profile Service which forced the system to stop responding.
- Fixed an issue with Local Security Authority Subsystem Service to stop working and trigger a system restart automatically.
- Fixed a log corruption issue when a storage volume is full.
- Fixed a Remote Desktop session disconnect issue.
- Fixed a certification issue that caused Internet Explorer mode on Microsoft Edge to fail.
I have been going through Microsoft and Reddit forums and have seen some complaints about issues after installing the KB4535996 update. Some are unable to install the update while getting 0x800f0922 and 0x80070003 error messages. For some users, the update freezes while installing and some users are also seeing BSODs when they restart the computer after installing this update.
I installed it on my computers and laptops but didn’t encounter any error. The installation went smoothly and completed successfully. I can say that only a very small percentage of users will have problems with this update. If you are one of them, you should uninstall the update.
7 comments
Tahir Sadiq
I highly doubt that this update that microsoft has released out of the blue will fix windows printing issues. This update should have released on the regular patch tuesday in march.
Tahir Sadiq
by the way you did not mention that after installing this update windows 10 version 1909 build will become 18363.693 and version 1903 will become 18362.693.
Usman Khurshid
Thanks for adding this valuable info. I really forgot about it :-)
Tahir Sadiq
microsoft releases kb4535996 but is this microsofts update worth installing. I have seen many users complain on twitter about issues with this update version.
Usman Khurshid
Tahir I have already mentioned in the article that I didn’t get any error while installing this update. Since Microsoft is offering this as an optional update, you can simply bypass the installation of this update.
Win10Geek
The highlights:
Updates an issue that prevents the speech platform application from opening for several minutes in a high noise environment.
Updates an issue that reduces the image quality in the Windows Mixed Reality (WMR) home environment.
Updates an issue that might prevent ActiveX content from loading.
Improves battery performance during Modern Standby mode.
Updates an issue that causes Microsoft Narrator to stop working when a user session is longer than 30 minutes.
Addresses an issue that adds an unwanted keyboard layout as the default after an upgrade even if you have already removed it.
Updates an issue that prevents the Windows Search box from rendering properly.
Updates an issue that prevents the printer settings user interface from displaying properly.
Updates an issue that prevents some applications from printing to network printers.
Improvements for Windows 10 Version 1909
This build includes all the improvements from Windows 10, version 1903.
No additional issues were documented for this release.
Improvements and fixes for Windows 10 Version 1903
Addresses an issue that prevents the speech platform application from opening for several minutes in a high noise environment.
Addresses an issue that reduces the image quality in the Windows Mixed Reality (WMR) home environment.
Improves Urlmon resiliency when receiving incorrect Content-Length for a PeerDist response.
Addresses an issue with rendering PeerDist-encoded content in Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge.
Addresses an issue that might prevent ActiveX content from loading.
Addresses an issue that might cause Microsoft browsers to bypass proxy servers.
Improves the battery performance during Modern Standby mode.
Addresses an issue that prevents Centennial apps from opening in certain scenarios.
Addresses an issue that prevents the OpenFile() function in the KernelBase.dll library from handling file paths longer than 128 characters.
Addresses an issue that prevents a user from upgrading or uninstalling some Universal Windows Platforms (UWP) apps in certain scenarios.
Addresses an issue that causes Microsoft Narrator to stop working when a user session is longer than 30 minutes.
Addresses an issue that adds an unwanted keyboard layout as the default after an upgrade or migration even if you have already removed it.
Addresses an issue with editing the properties of .mov files.
Addresses an issue that causes usbvideo.sys to stop working intermittently when a device resumes from Suspend or Sleep after using the Camera app or Windows Hello.
Addresses an issue that might prevent the “Allow uninstallation of language features when a language is uninstalled” Group Policy from taking effect.
Addresses an issue that prevents the Windows Search box from rendering fully in the space allotted for it.
Addresses an issue that prevents the Input Method Editor (IME) user dictionary from being used when leveraging folder redirection with user profiles.
Addresses an issue that might prevent the Windows Search box from showing results.
Addresses an issue that causes the installation process to stop responding when installing Windows on a VMware guest machine that has a USB 3.0 hub attached.
Addresses an issue with Windows Autopilot self-deploying mode and white-glove deployment.
Addresses an issue in which re-running PowerShell workflows might fail with compilation errors for long sessions.
Improves Event Forwarding scalability to ensure thread safety and increase resources.
Addresses an issue in the Windows activation troubleshooter that prevents users from reactivating their copy of Windows using the product key stored in their Managed Service Account (MSA).
Addresses an issue that prevents some applications, which are deployed using the Microsoft Installer (MSI) from being installed using the mobile device management (MDM) platform. This issue occurs because of a missing property in the MSI metadata.
Addresses an issue that generates an “unknown username or bad password” error when attempting to sign in. This occurs in an environment that has a Windows Server 2003 domain controller (DC) and a Windows Server 2016 or later DC.
Addresses an issue with sign-in scripts that fail to run when a user signs in or signs out.
Addresses an issue that continues to collect IsTouchCapable and GetSystemSku data when they should no longer be collected.
Addresses an issue that causes some Azure Active Directory (AAD) joined systems, which were upgraded to Windows 10, version 1903, to erroneously rejoin the AAD domain.
Addresses an issue in which the WinHTTP AutoProxy service does not comply with the value set for the maximum Time To Live (TTL) on the Proxy Auto-Configuration (PAC) file. This prevents the cached file from updating dynamically.
Addresses an issue that causes the wrong printer name to be selected when you click the Print button in the SQL reporting service.
Addresses an issue that prevents the printer settings user interface from displaying properly.
Addresses an issue in the Network Profile Service that might cause a computer to stop responding.
Addresses an issue that prevents some applications from printing to network printers.
Addresses an issue that might cause a printer to be a hidden device in Device Manager after a restart.
Addresses an issue that causes Host Networking Service (HNS) PortMapping policies to leak when the container host is reinstated after a restart.
Addresses a stop error (0x000000CA) that occurs when you mount a Resilient File System (ReFS) volume without a physical device. This might occur in some backup solution scenarios.
Addresses an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) issue that causes an infinite loop in the retry logic when there are several lost connections in the connection pool.
Addresses an issue that causes the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) to stop working and triggers a restart of the system. This issue occurs when invalid restart data is sent with a non-critical paged search control.
Addresses an issue that intermittently generates Online Certificate Status Protocol (OSCP) Responder audit event 5125 to indicate that a request was submitted to the OCSP Responder Service. However, there is no reference to the serial number or the domain name (DN) of the issuer of the request.
Addresses an issue that causes queries against large keys on Ntds.dit to fail with the error, “MAPI_E_NOT_ENOUGH_RESOURCES”. This issue might cause users to see limited meeting room availability because the Exchange Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) cannot allocate additional memory for the meeting requests.
Addresses an issue that corrupts a log file when a storage volume is full and data is still being written to the Extensible Storage Engine Technology (ESENT) database.
Addresses an issue that causes _NFS4SRV_FILE_CACHE_ENTRY and DirectoryCacheLock to stop responding and leads to error 9E.
Addresses an issue that prevents Server Message Block (SMB) Multichannel from working within a cluster network that has IPv6 Local-Link addresses.
Addresses an issue that might cause Storage Migration Service inventory operations on a Windows Server 2003 source computer to fail in clustered environments.
Addresses a timing issue that may cause stop error 0x27 in mrxsmb20!Smb2InvalidateFileInfoCacheEntry. This issue occurs when you rename or delete files that have certain extensions and are stored on a network share that has client-side caching enabled.
Addresses an issue in the Storage Migration Service that causes the Cutover stage to stop working during migration if an administrator assigns a static IP address to the source adapter.
Addresses an issue in which canceling a deduplication (dedup) job to rebuild hotspots prevents other deduplication PowerShell commands from responding.
Addresses an issue that might cause Remote Desktop sessions to disconnect because a leak in system memory occurs when the client window is minimized or maximized.
Addresses an issue that makes the Windows Defender Application Control’s Code Integrity-based events unreadable.
Addresses an issue with certificate validation that causes Internet Explorer mode on Microsoft Edge to fail.
Addresses an issue with syncing a device that prevents the device status from appearing on the mobile device management (MDM) server.
Very strange that Windows 10 Version 1903 comes with so many fixes. Time to move to Windows 10 Version 2004 now :-)
Usman Khurshid
That is the reason why I don’t prefer copy/pasting all the information from the changelog. It’s so lengthy and not useful for most of the users.