Microsoft is making yet another attempt to combat update bloat with checkpoint cumulative updates coming to both Windows 11 24H2 and Windows Server 2025.
Windows Insiders on the Dev Channel can already preview what Microsoft is planning in build 26120.1252.
Microsoft previously endeavored to reduce the size of updates via differential downloads, which grab only what has changed.
This approach has continued with Windows 11. With version 21H2, Microsoft said, “We introduced smaller downloads to Windows devices by doing range reads to only download and install binary differentials missing on the device. These binary differentials are computed against the RTM version of the binaries.”
Microsoft intends to shrink things further by using checkpoint cumulative updates, which only contain the changes since the previous checkpoint. It sounds an awful lot like differential updates, except a lot more frequent and granular, and so a lot smaller.
Considering how frequently Microsoft releases updates these days, it’s surprising that it has taken so long to reach this point.
End users are unlikely to notice much difference, except that updates will often be smaller. Administrators should also be able to stick to their existing tools. However, Microsoft warned:
“If you source updates from the Microsoft Update Catalog, you’ll notice that a given monthly update may contain more than one update package file available for download. There will be one file for each checkpoint, plus an additional file that contains cumulative payload from the latest checkpoint. You will be able to install all files sequentially using existing deployment tools.”
We asked Microsoft if it would extend this approach to other products, such as its productivity suite, and will update this piece if the company responds.
While it would be nice if Microsoft did not have to update Windows continually, the company is hardly alone in dropping users into update purgatory while the inevitable patch turns up. The new approach is a logical evolution from the existing differential approach, with checkpoints used to ensure that only content that is missing on a device is downloaded and installed. It should result in less disk space being required and less bandwidth consumed.
Hopefully, the method will also simplify the rollback process when – heaven forbid – something goes wrong. ®