Windows 10, updates blocked with USB connected to PC

Find out why the Windows 10 update will be blocked if a USB stick is connected to the PC. The reason is quite curious

If the infamous Windows 10 October Update of fall 2018 will remain in history for the huge amount of problems it caused users, including even the loss of personal data, the next May Update (formerly April Update: Microsoft needs more time and will release it at the end of May) seems not to be born under a good star either. In addition to the fact that it will "steal" a lot of GB of space on the hard disk, the next Microsoft Windows 10 update will have a feature at the limits of the understandable: you will not be able to update your PC if external disks or USB sticks or SD memory cards are connected to it.

If all this already seems absurd, even more strange seems the motivation: on a PC with external memories connected in USB or inserted in the SD slot there could be a reassignment of the letters of the external drives. In practice: if before the May Update our external USB drive is identified, for example, with the letter "G:", after the update the same drive could become "H:". Even more serious, as Microsoft itself explains in a document of its online support: "Drive letter reassignment is not limited to removable disks. Internal disks could also be affected."

Why you can't update Windows 10 with a USB stick

As a result, Microsoft has blocked the update for PCs with these configurations and prepared an error message that, again, is anything but understandable: "This PC cannot be updated to Windows 10. Your PC has hardware that is not ready for this version of Windows 10. No action is necessary. Windows Update will offer this version of Windows automatically as soon as the problem is fixed." Translated: Windows Update will update the system on its own, but only when you unplug the external drive. What if you leave it connected? Then the updates will be blocked and you, if you haven't read this article, won't even know why.

In the same online support document Microsoft also proposes a "workaround", that is, a trick to solve this problem: unplug the external USB hard drive (or remove the SD memory card) and launch the update again. At this point, the question arises: why is this suggestion not given to the user directly in the error message?