Microsoft reduces downtime for Windows 10 feature upgrades
With Creators update, Microsoft introduced UUP to implement feature upgrades. By UUP, the update engine only downloaded that Windows files that were updated in the feature release, not all. By this, the windows updates size began to be a bit smaller. Where ESD file used to be around 2.5 GB, now the updates are around 1.5 GB. Now Microsoft is continually improving the update engine-be it time taken to Install or space it takes or the bandwidth.
Now, one step further-MS is tweaking up the time taken for an Installation of a feature upgrade. By time, I mean the time when your PC is unusable. It includes time before restart and after. There are two broad steps taken in a feature upgrade-online and offline method.
Here is what Happens earlier:
Online phase:
Now, one step further-MS is tweaking up the time taken for an Installation of a feature upgrade. By time, I mean the time when your PC is unusable. It includes time before restart and after. There are two broad steps taken in a feature upgrade-online and offline method.
Here is what Happens earlier:
Online phase:
- Checking of the update
- Downloading
- Backing up of user content’
- Copying of new files
- PC waits to reboot
Offline phase(Computer isn’t used)
- PC reboots to Install
- Driver and other OS are migrated.
- User content is restored.
Microsoft has tweaked down these parts. Now with a slight change, the update process takes longer, but the downtime is less as compared to previous. The online phase is the same, while the Offline phase is somewhat changed:
- PC reboots to begin install process (manually or automatically)
- Drivers and other required OS files are migrated
- User content is restored
- PC reboots and the update finalizes
“By moving the old offline portions of the upgrade process to the online phase, upgrades will appear to take longer if you’re watching or timing the progress. We didn’t want to sacrifice usability for offline time so the upgrade processes are run at a lower priority to provide for best performance,” Microsoft says in feedback hub.