Windows 10 Updates Are About To Get a Lot Smaller To Download as Microsoft Switches To Differential Patching (theverge.com)

Microsoft currently distributes major Windows 10 updates -- Anniversary Update, for instance -- as essentially full operating system installs, going as much 4GB in size. But that is changing starting today (for some users). From an article on The Verge: Microsoft has been promising smaller updates to Windows 10, through various methods, for what feels like years, but the company is now starting to test a new Unified Update Platform (UUP) that will make a big difference. "One of the biggest community and customer benefits of UUP is the reduction you'll see in download size on PCs," explains Bill Karagounis, a Windows program manager. "We have converged technologies in our build and publishing systems to enable differential downloads for all devices built on the Mobile and PC OS." Differential downloads only include the changes that have been pushed out since you last updated a Windows 10 PC. This new change will debut with the Windows 10 Creators Update that's expected to arrive in March, but Windows Insiders can start testing the technology in today's latest build update for mobile devices. Microsoft will start rolling this out to PC builds later this year, alongside HoloLens devices. Xbox One devices running Windows 10 won't benefit from UUP as Microsoft distributes operating system updates to consoles using different methods.

Comments

Yay for metered connections!

[mackil]

About time!

I recently helped a friend who kept having Windows 10 chew through all his Verizon bandwidth. They live in a rural area and are unable to get DSL, so they're on Verizon's 5gig a month plan. The Anniversary update along with all the live tiles, Update sharing and telemetry information sharing, completely wiped out their monthly bandwidth limit.

I turned on the metering controls to help with that, but this is even better.

Re:Yay for metered connections!

[Anonymous Coward]

but obviously doing that would ruin any kind of latency-sensitive activity. Like loading Slashdot, believe it or not. If I have a download running the https handshake to Slashdot actually times out.

US satellite internet user here. Slashdot's https handshake randomly times out for me just during normal page loads, with no other bandwidth use. Haven't noticed it with any other site, just slashdot. As usual the site is a shitshow, no surprise there.

Also, more on-topic: I have a 10GB/mo bandwidth limit. It's hard enough to make it through the month without OS updates; I go through the cap in 10-15 days even with very careful use just because of how bloated websites have become.

That's bad enough, but running W10 updates on a couple systems is capable of eating most of the monthly cap even if I do nothing else online all month. It used to not be a problem because you could set the updates to install overnight during the "bonus period" that has a separate cap that doesn't count against the daytime 10GB limit, but then Microsoft decided to take away user control of the update process. It downloads when it wants, any time of day, and fuck you for wanting to control the time. You're allowed to control when it reboots and that's all.

But that's okay, you think, because you can still retain some control by setting your connection to metered. Wrong! You can only do that if your connection is wireless, so if your PC is connected to a router via ethernet, you lose that option. You can sort-of set it via a registry edit and reboot, but that means you now have to repeat the regedit-and-reboot cycle any time you need to briefly disable the metered setting. So now, thanks to their attempt to force people to stay updated, all the Windows systems in the house are perpetually out-of-date because I can't automate the middle-of-the-night update process any more. They only get updated when (if) I'm able to sit up all night babysitting the systems.

Thanks, Microsoft, I'm glad you think you know what I need better than I do.

Re:Last to the party, yet again

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly, they didin't have a problem hijacking your connection to help win10 spread itself over MS's own peer-to-peer network when it was being rolled out.
I wonder how many data overage charges were wrought on that day.