Microsoft is working on reducing the size of Windows 10 updates to relieve burden on users’ bandwidth during the upgrade process. According to Microsoft, in some cases, update size will be reduced by almost 30 percent.
Microsoft’s unified update platform
Back in 2016, Microsoft announced that they were working on a unified update platform. This platform was created to specifically reduce update sizes and make the whole upgrade process much more streamlined. It works by only downloading the code that has been changed rather than downloading a whole image of new Windows. This is known as differential download and it is already in use while updating apps through Windows Store or Google’s Play Store.
Now it seems like Microsoft is finally ready to share some results from their work on this platform. Windows Insiders will now be able to see reduced update size while upgrading to latest version of Windows. Microsoft shared this infographic which shows the difference between update file sizes between build 15031 (with older download mechanism) and build 15025 (with new differential download mechanism).
The update file size, which was previously around 2.5GB, has been reduced to only 910MB using the new unified update platform.
When will it be available for general users?
The new update mechanism is expected to arrive via the Creator’s Update, slated for release in late March or early April. However, as this feature requires Creator’s Update to be installed in the first place, users will not be able to see a difference between update sizes until they receive the update after the Creator’s Update.
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