Microsoft announced that smaller monthly quality updates will be available and it will start with the next major releases of Windows 10 and Windows Server. It is believed that this will be a lot better for many customers due to the reduced size. You may check this post to know more about monthly quality updates right now.
Microsoft announced smaller monthly quality updates are expected to deliver. And it will start with the next major releases of Windows 10 (See here: Should I Upgrade to Windows 10 – How to Decide)and Windows Server.
What these new monthly quality updates will be called haven’t been decided yet. According to Microsoft, the new monthly quality updates will be available for the next major versions of Windows 10 and Windows Server (click here to see the best partition manager for Windows Server), coming later this year. And both of those products will follow the “Windows as a service” update model. Two major functional updates will be carried out annually, in the spring and fall.
It’s said that a traditional monthly quality update won’t offer new operating system features but only provides updates to existing OS components. It is believed that this will be a lot better for many customers due to the reduced size. Monthly quality updates are cumulative. That is to say, all previously released OS updates will be contained in a monthly quality update. In this case, the size of updates will grow in each month. And some users may be nagged by the shortage of storage space as their system processes are used and their limited storage space is filled to accommodate the growing monthly payload.
According to Microsoft, this new update approach provides benefits over the three (full, delta, and express) existing update types:
- Organizations that get full updates from Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or from the Microsoft Update Catalog will seamlessly save network bandwidth thanks to the smaller size of the update.
- Organizations that have been using delta updates to manage the size of quality updates will no longer have to monitor the update status and history of their devices to determine which devices are eligible for delta updates.
- Since this new quality update package will be redistributable, organizations that utilize express updates via WSUS, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), or a third-party management solution that supports express updates will experience enormous savings in network bandwidth and cache size on their distribution points or update servers. In addition, devices with the next major version of Windows 10 will be 40% more efficient* while updating since there will be no behind-the-scenes computing of the optimal differentials required to download express updates.
An announcement released by Microsoft shows that the new quality updates will make 40% improvement in device memory utilization compared to Express updates.
The comparison chart will show you relative size differences between these different update types, without showing the units of measurement.
Microsoft promised that Express Updates would be the technology to reduce the size of monthly quality updates a year ago. However, this time Microsoft pointed out a new and different “compact update package for easier and faster deployment.”
These new monthly quality updates will arrive via the Windows Update content delivery service, and they’ll also be downloadable. According to Microsoft, the new quality updates will be “redistributable” across networks in the same small size. They will provide organizations with an “enormous savings in network bandwidth and cache size on their distribution points or update servers,” Let’s have a look at Microsoft’s description:
Quality updates packaged using this new design will be distributed over Windows Update (WU) and WSUS in a cabinet (.cab) file and available as downloadable Update Standalone Installer (.msu) files from the Microsoft Update Catalog. Devices managed by Microsoft Intune, and third-party mobile device management (MDM) solutions, as well as on-premises management solutions that get updates from WSUS or the Microsoft Update Catalog, will all have access to this new quality update design.
The new monthly quality updates will mainly be used for Windows 10 and Windows Server users. Express Updates and Full Updates will only be available for low-level supported versions of Windows 10. Last month Microsoft explained that Delta Updates will stop arriving on Feb. 12, 2019, which suggested that the monthly Delta Update method would be abandoned in the near future.
Microsoft is continuing to work to reduce the impact of cumulative update sizes and reduce complexity for IT administrators. And many users expect the coming of the new monthly quality updates.