How Updates in Windows 11 will be Better than Before
Microsoft has outlined how Windows 11 will offer seamless updates that are 40% lower in size than those in Windows 10 – and that will all occur in the background. In comparison to Windows 10, Windows 11 will receive fewer updates, and a single feature update will be delivered every year, similar to Apple’s annual macOS releases.
Upgrading Windows 10 has never been a delightful experience for anybody; every time you did an update, you needed to stop all the work and provide a large portion of your internet traffic to the update menu. In addition to all this, the updates, in many cases, are known to make the PCs a bit slower too. That is the main reason why outdated operating systems like Windows 7 are still in use. Let’s look at the significant changes Microsoft will be bringing to Windows 11 updates.
What’s Better with Windows 11 Updates?
Microsoft has been quite open to acknowledging all the faults. This time, they have promised to bring most of the issues down by improving the update experience on Windows 11 significantly; let’s look at why updates in Windows 11 will be better than before.
Smaller Sizes
Another reason why many users refrained from updating Windows 10 that often was the massive size of the updates. There are still many countries where bandwidth is not cheap, and people don’t update as the downloaded file size is beyond the allowed limits. Now that updates are smaller and can also be shared across multiple PC, it is not a reason to avoid updates anymore.
Windows 11 will use a technology that will compare the features and settings available on the user’s computer with the ones in the update and will only download the new ones. It will make the update size smaller by 40% in many cases.
More Reliable
The updates are going to be more reliable as per Microsoft as the size has already been well optimized. The updates will also be rolled out at the right times and only when they are needed.
Many users get stuck downloading the update even if the internet is working as expected. Using the intelligent delivery method, downloading new updates will be more reliable.
Less Background Activity And AI-Powered
Unlike Windows 10, Windows 11 updates will not overstress your PC. Microsoft has also introduced a new AI-powered technology where the updates will only happen when you are not using your PC. Also, the update notifications will eventually be removed.
Faster And Simpler Updates
Instead of offering constant updates, Microsoft will offer only one feature updated making it simple, and these updates will be delivered fastest to all the users. It ensures people will have to worry less about their program not working or an existing feature becomes not available, and so on.
How is Microsoft Reducing the Update Size?
The 40% smaller updates come from a different file combination. Unlike Windows 10, where the updates depended on a single .msu file, the updates in Windows 11 are a combination of 2 files, i.e., 1 .msu file and 1 .psf file with the same KB number. It helps the Windows update feature only to download the required parts of updates and not the heavy chunk that creates trouble for your PC.
It was experimented by a Windows user who has been updating Windows using offline installers, i.e., MSU installer files.
He figured that on Windows 11, using the installer directly takes more time. But now that files are split, it may take time to combine, but installation or the actual update is speedy. However, if you download the MSU file and try to update it, it will take longer.
Windows 11 KB consist of .cab and .psf file, while Windows 10 consist of .cab file only. If you plan to install Windows updates, you will also need a PSF file, without which the update will not work. That said, if you are wondering what happens in the case of online download, then Windows generates PSFX (PSF Express) payloads as required while the CAB package only contains the manifests.
Conclusion
The process of fixing the Windows Update sometimes started back with Windows 10, which offered two feature update every year, which became annoying for many after few years. Now that Windows 11 offers limited feature updates and the more refined method to update Windows 11, it will sound attractive to many who were on metered internet. If you are still unsure, it would be best to wait it out and see what others say about the Windows Update.
