Friendly Dates pulled from Windows 10 May 2019 Update

[harlan4096]

Microsoft released a new build for the next but one release of Windows 10, Windows 20H1. The new release brings the preview release to build 18890 and while it really should not affect Windows 10 version 1903, it does in this case.

Microsoft revealed that Friendly Dates won't make it into the May 2019 Update for Windows 10. The feature will be removed from Insider builds and anyone using an Insider build should see it go away soon.

Friendly Dates, also known as dates in conversational format, was added to preview builds of Windows 10 version 1903 in December 2018.

File Explorer, Windows Explorer in Windows 10, displays the date and time of a file by default when you open any directory in the file manager.

The format is DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM; it applies to all date columns including date modified or date created.

Note: You can add and remove headers from File Explorer to display additional date columns or remove existing ones.

Friendly Dates changed a date like 02/12/2018 09:30 to December 2, 2018, or even just "yesterday at 09:30, or "just now".

Friendly dates were designed to improve the readability of time-based information in File Explorer; this seems to have backfired as Microsoft pulled the feature.

One of the issue that users experienced with friendly dates was that the new formats were different. Instead of sticking to a single format, Date Time, friendly dates would use different time formats such as "4 hours ago", yesterday at 09:04", November 29, or November 29, 2018. Sorting worked as expected though.

Microsoft did not reveal why it decided to pull friendly dates from Windows 10 version 1903. It is also unclear if the feature will come back at a later point in time.

I think it is unlikely that this is going to happen considering that the company removed the feature from Windows 10 version 2003 Insider Builds as well. If it wanted to delay a release, it could have kept the feature in the preview builds and just remove it from the upcoming May 2019 Update.

Friendly Dates is the second feature that Microsoft won't release any time soon. Sets, a feature to combine multiple application windows in a single container won't be released in Windows 10 version 1903 either.

Now You: What is your take on Friendly Dates?

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