Wow! It’s been quite a week here at Chez Tittel. It never fails but when I get busy with paying work, the frequency of and/or workload in handling Windows updates goes up, too. Including a loaner unit, I have 11 PCs to take care of right now. And this week has seen a Preview CU for production Windows 10, a release for 21H2 Windows 10, and various updates and upgrades for Windows 11 Insider Previews in all 3 channels (Release Preview, Beta and Dev). Hence my summary, that heavy update traffic complicates fleet management.

When Heavy Update Traffic Complicates Fleet Management, Get Busy!

As I check update history on my PCs, I see one or more items this week on all of them. Around here that’s about as busy as things can get. Fortunately, except for a firmware update issue on a loaner PC — which has nothing to do with MS updates AFAIK — it’s all been pretty routine and trouble-free. All it takes is paying attention and a little time.

I also use a couple of tools to keep up with applications and suchlike as well. PatchMyPC is a free updating tool that keeps up with most of my stuff. SUMo (Software Update Monitor) Lite is a free scanning tool that tells me what else I need to update (but leaves me on my own to get that done). I try to run these once a week, or as time permits. Lately, there hasn’t been much free time to spend on updates, but it’s getting done now, as I think of it.

The “Clean-as-you-Go” Principle

In keeping up with my PCs, I try to do a little bit every time I use them, so I don’t have to deep clean at longer intervals. A little bit of clean-up and update on an ongoing basis works better for me as a maintenance regime that periodic, scheduled (but longer) update/clean-up sessions.

Here in Windows-World, you can pick whichever regime makes most sense for you. I’ve got my routine and I’m sticking to it!

MS tracks and delivers changes (and reverse operations) to OS images using “forward and reverse differentials.” This started in Windows 10, Version 1809. Now, MS adds slick optimization that reduces repeat references to objects and instructions. Thus, MS streamlines Windows 11 update handling further. It’s all explained in an October 12 Microsoft Windows IT Pro blog post. That post is entitled “How Microsoft reduced Windows 11 update size by 40%.” It explains how MS further reduced update volume without boosting installation time.

How MS Streamlines Windows 11 Update Handling

In the afore-linked blog post, MS explains its objectives as “reducing the size of Windows 11 updates.” At the same time, the company sought to:

• decrease size of network downloads for updates
• keep install times unchanged (not slowed)
• keep updates compatible with all distribution channels (e.g. WU, WSUS, SCCM, InTune/AutoPilot and so forth). Thus, IT pros need make no config changes.

According to the blog post, “since Windows 10, version 1809, …servicing has used paired forward and reverse differential compression.” What MS did, at a high level, with Windows 11 was to add a catalog to remap virtual addresses when function addresses or other relative references change. This replaces forward and reverse differentials for such addresses with (much shorter) lookup table references.

Such operations are easy to reverse, too. These might be required if an update fails prior to completion. This returns the OS image to a known, working stable state. OTOH, it might be required if the user decides to uninstall or roll back an update.

MS’s analyses show that this new approach provides a “40% reduction in update size.” This means not just smaller updates, but less overall consumption of network bandwidth to transport updates. For software with millions (Windows 11) to billions (Windows 10) of users, this is a big deal. No wonder MS is working to patent this technology…