Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story noted that certain devices required up to 8 hours of internet connection to update; the story has been revised based on updated information from Microsoft.
Windows devices that aren't connected to the Internet for up to six hours at a time are "extremely unlikely" to update conveniently and fully, according to a recent Microsoft survey.
Microsoft program manager David Guyer wrote in a recent weblog post that devices require a minimum of 2 hours of continuous connection and six hours of full connection to install "quality and feature updates."
"This leaves a successful download and also background installations capable of rebooting or rebooting once a device is up and connected," Guyer wrote.
Nearly a week after the weblog was first published, Guyer answered a few pointed questions in a comment thread, explaining that most updates from start to finish can take less than an hour.
"The six 'total hours online' (not 8) that I cited in this article are based on studies that include devices that are used infrequently, often online for a few minutes over multiple hours, have connectivity intermittent and frequently march on drums," Guyer wrote. "Certain parts of the update process can restart where they left off, such as downloads. Others have to restart from the beginning if the device is turned off. Therefore, these 2 items are considered in the criteria.
The problem with long updates, according to Microsoft, is more common on devices running Windows 10; these systems require significantly larger updates than Windows XNUMX. Microsoft has reduced the size of updates for Windows XNUMX by forty percent using compression technology, "reducing the time and bandwidth requirements for updates." wrote the program manager in an October XNUMX weblog post.
Microsoft
How devices with poor update connectivity appear in the Windows Quick Update report in Intune.
Microsoft, Guyer wrote, has invested a huge sacrifice to discover why certain Windows devices are still not absolutely up to date.
About half of Windows XNUMX devices that are no longer running a serviced version don't spend enough time online to download and also install updates. That number boils down to XNUMX% of Windows XNUMX devices that are on a serviceable version plus have security updates that are more than XNUMX days old, according to Microsoft.
One drawback is that end users shut down their systems at the end of their work day, eliminating the possibility of overnight updates. "Impressed at the importance of keeping your devices connected so they can stay protected and productive," Guyer said.
In investigating the issue, Microsoft discovered "poor update connectivity", or the time and bandwidth required to fully update the hardware over the six hours of connection time. low update connectivity can create new issues that disappear once there is sufficient connectivity,” Guyer wrote.
The bottom line, though, is that Windows updates are big, and even breaking updates into smaller segments and separating them so they don't all happen at once requires the machine to be powered on for quite some time. so, once the update is fully downloaded, the computer still needs to run the software in the background to have minimal impact on the machine's performance.
The inconvenience of updates for Microsoft has been an inconvenience for years; this is not something new with Windows ten.
"Microsoft is going to have a hard time getting through this scenario, but they try to do it with every new operating system and improve it, but they still have a long way to go," said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold. Associates. .
The essential drawback is that the way Microsoft has structured Windows and the update process fundamentally requires much of the operating system to be updated every time there's a new version, according to Gold.
"Other operating systems, especially some mobile systems...have figured out how to take a component-based approach to updating only the precise parts of the code," Gold wrote in an email reply to Computerworld. “Microsoft is also trying to move in this direction, and Windows XNUMX does better in this area. The existing platform is used in the new versions of the operating system.
Microsoft
A bug report filtered to the Poor Update Connectivity alarm, showing devices with poor update connectivity.
If Microsoft tried to give operating system updates the priority they need to complete quickly, it would essentially take control of a machine's CPU, resulting in slow performance for each and every application on the system.
To get around the problem, Microsoft opted for partial downloads, doing one, waiting a bit, then downloading more, Gold said.
"Basically, they throttle down so they don't hit performance too much... so they don't leave the user working on the machine at all," Gold said.
Other operating systems have similar drawbacks, but to a much lesser extent. For example, Apple's macOS is based on a considerably more segmented Linux kernel than Windows. Consequently, system updates are usually not that essential unless a user is upgrading to a completely new version of macOS.
"But that doesn't mean the upgrade process on the Mac is easy either," Gold said. “Computer resources are still required to download and perform updates. It is somewhat simpler for the system and the user than Windows.
According to Microsoft, another issue affecting updates is power management. Certain power settings and related policies hibernate or hibernate a device too fast, which can prevent updates from occurring outside of active hours.
Microsoft provides recommendations on how to ensure updates take place, including power settings that help devices stay current with security updates. IT administrators who use GPOs to manage policies can use Windows Security Baselines settings, free as part of the Security Compliance Toolkit, to configure power settings.
Organizations may also consider filtering out devices that lack minimal update connectivity. The argument is that these devices are not "good for updating", and changing the policies or targeting them with more updates isn't going to help until they reach the minimum connectivity metric.
Administrators can review which devices have poor update connectivity through Microsoft Intune. Once there, go to Devices > Monitor and choose either the Feature Update Failures report or the Windows Accelerated Update Failures report.
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