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The Windows Update system is engineered so that individual updates can be selected/deselected without affecting the ability to install other updates. The slowne

The Windows Update system is engineered so that individual updates can be selected/deselected without affecting the ability to install other updates. The slowness of Windows Update, as I understand, is related to this fact. However, that being said, Windows Update for me as a user that would apply all updates anyway, was unbearably slow, and a big part of the reason that I switched to Linux and FreeBSD years ago and never looked back. I guess for enterprises that want to deselect certain updates for various reasons relating to their setup, Windows Update is probably a great selling point. I still don’t get why it has to be so slow for the default case where all updates are applied though.

danShumway 8y ago
> The Windows Update system is engineered so that individual updates can be selected/deselected without affecting the ability to install other updates. This could be me being completely ignorant of the details, but doesn't Linux have the same thing? I can individually apply package updates, even mess with dependencies -- but my computer updates quickly and doesn't require multiple restarts during the process. Usually, unless I'm updating the kernel itself, I don't even need to restart. What are they doing that's even more granular than Linux's update process?
- tomnipotent 8y ago
  Only this was 1st party updates from Microsoft only, but it felt like you were getting updates from a hundred 3rd party packages.
  - chris_wot 8y ago
    Well, here's a fun fact for Windows 7: Microsoft at one point decided that they would allow people to roll forward and roll back updates at-will, and even move to an update at a point-in-time in its entirety if necessary. Obviously, this is rather insane and takes up a gigantic amount of disk space, and wasn't something they ever implemented. They must have realised this, so they built a facility into their DISM.exe utility to remove all updates that were superseded by the service pack (the switch is /spsuperceded). DISM.exe was released in Windows 7 SP1. Note that there has never been, and never will be, a Windows 7 SP2, because Microsoft decided to go with the rolling update schedule. What this means, however, is that /spsuperceded will never work as they have never actually gotten to a second service pack. It appears to me that Microsoft must have forgotten the original plan for clearing out old and useless patch files from SxS, because they rather surreptitiously introduced a new option into the disk cleanup wizard to remove old Windows Updates (to get to it, you need to elevate to admin via UAC in the GUI). This removes the old updates. I have literally had systems with around 6-8GB of old Windows Update files. The biggest issue is that you think they are deleted, but it appears that Microsoft actually removes the updates after you reboot. I've had one system that took an hour to reboot as it was removing so much junk. I had a friend who had an even worse system, and he had to leave it overnight... Here's another fun fact (not sure if it's fixed in Windows 10...) but the WinSxS folder is where system files are kept. NTFS does a symbolic link to these folders back to the System32 folder. The problem is that the metadata is updated in one location only, and so if you check the WinSxS folder and the System32 folder, you'll see different file sizes for each folder.
    - anticensor 8y ago
      > NTFS does a symbolic link to these folders back to the System32 folder. It creates hard links, not link symbolically.
      - chris_wot 8y ago
        Oops, you are of course right!
praseodym 8y ago
Microsoft actually stopped offering invidiual updates two years ago, citing high complexity and slow update scan times as problems. Instead, they moved to monthly rollup patches that supersede all previous updates. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-for-IT-Pros-Migrated/Further-simplifying-servicing-models-for-Windows-7-and-Windows-8/ba-p/166772 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-for-IT-Pros-M...

danShumway 8y ago

> The Windows Update system is engineered so that individual updates can be selected/deselected without affecting the ability to install other updates. This could be me being completely ignorant of the details, but doesn't Linux have the same thing? I can individually apply package updates, even mess with dependencies -- but my computer updates quickly and doesn't require multiple restarts during the process. Usually, unless I'm updating the kernel itself, I don't even need to restart. What are they doing that's even more granular than Linux's update process?

tomnipotent 8y ago
Only this was 1st party updates from Microsoft only, but it felt like you were getting updates from a hundred 3rd party packages.
- chris_wot 8y ago
  Well, here's a fun fact for Windows 7: Microsoft at one point decided that they would allow people to roll forward and roll back updates at-will, and even move to an update at a point-in-time in its entirety if necessary. Obviously, this is rather insane and takes up a gigantic amount of disk space, and wasn't something they ever implemented. They must have realised this, so they built a facility into their DISM.exe utility to remove all updates that were superseded by the service pack (the switch is /spsuperceded). DISM.exe was released in Windows 7 SP1. Note that there has never been, and never will be, a Windows 7 SP2, because Microsoft decided to go with the rolling update schedule. What this means, however, is that /spsuperceded will never work as they have never actually gotten to a second service pack. It appears to me that Microsoft must have forgotten the original plan for clearing out old and useless patch files from SxS, because they rather surreptitiously introduced a new option into the disk cleanup wizard to remove old Windows Updates (to get to it, you need to elevate to admin via UAC in the GUI). This removes the old updates. I have literally had systems with around 6-8GB of old Windows Update files. The biggest issue is that you think they are deleted, but it appears that Microsoft actually removes the updates after you reboot. I've had one system that took an hour to reboot as it was removing so much junk. I had a friend who had an even worse system, and he had to leave it overnight... Here's another fun fact (not sure if it's fixed in Windows 10...) but the WinSxS folder is where system files are kept. NTFS does a symbolic link to these folders back to the System32 folder. The problem is that the metadata is updated in one location only, and so if you check the WinSxS folder and the System32 folder, you'll see different file sizes for each folder.
  - anticensor 8y ago
    > NTFS does a symbolic link to these folders back to the System32 folder. It creates hard links, not link symbolically.
    - chris_wot 8y ago
      Oops, you are of course right!

praseodym 8y ago

Microsoft actually stopped offering invidiual updates two years ago, citing high complexity and slow update scan times as problems. Instead, they moved to monthly rollup patches that supersede all previous updates. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-for-IT-Pros-Migrated/Further-simplifying-servicing-models-for-Windows-7-and-Windows-8/ba-p/166772 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-for-IT-Pros-M...