So, in the end 19041.1 can be safely considered as the new RTM build for clean install? I did both a clean install on a Surface Laptop (1st gen) and a direct upgrade from a production Dell laptop and both went perfectly smooth, and without any bug after.
No they're not. I've been experiencing glitches with the search box for months, still present in this build. Takes a couple of clicks in the search box before anything happens, and if I select a previous search when it does come up, it usually does nothing the first time and I have to repeat the whole thing.
The reported explorer search box copy/paste problems in 1909 are solved in 20H1/19041 (bug that exists for all users). Your problem maybe just something local, or gfx driver/windows related, not a world wide bug.
I went from 18363.xxx directly to 19041.21 and it was catastrophic. From GPU drivers to bugs in the lockscreen and more. I clean formatted 19041.1 and updated to .21 from Windows Update with a combo of nVidia insider drivers 450.12 and it works perfectly now. The only annoying thing I have found is that my colours reset in random times or sometimes after I exit fullscreen games. I don't know if it's the drivers' fault(it also happened on previous gpu drivers 445 insider release) or Windows(Task Scheduler > Microsoft > Windows > WindowsColorSystem > Calibration Loader is disabled coz people were having problems with the colours back with 1903 onward)
or the upgrade issues for any code base from say 1909 fully updated to 1909 itself, 19035, 19041.21, with the same dreaded SAFE OS BOOT phase error, for many users who have something in common, which does not seems like hardware, rather than a 3rd party software or bios configuration.
The keys are generic used to change your Windows edition and doesn't activate it, you use it in the same way as any other product key.
in a completely fresh installation on a system where win10 is neither activated earlier nor upgraded from win7? How? And what's the process/catch?