Last year, Microsoft announced its latest effort ‘Unified Update Platform’ for reducing Windows 10 update sizes. It had then mentioned that users can expect the “download size to decrease by approximately 35 percent when going from one major update of Windows to another.”
Post its announcement in November, Microsoft started pushing preview builds packed with this update delivery technology out to Windows 10 Insiders. Basically, how this works is, the Unified Update Platform enables users to download portions of the update, which means only the changes that have been introduced in the latest build as compared to the current version, can be downloaded.
This could include copying files as-is that have not changed between builds, or it could involve applying “binary deltas” or “diffs” to old files to generate newer files. Since only parts of the OS will be downloaded to provide updated features, the updates are naturally smaller and faster. “We’ve converged technologies in our build and publishing systems to enable differential downloads for both PC and Mobile,” Microsoft wrote in its blog.
Further to understand this better, when a full build is downloaded that is called Canonical download packages, and when it is selectively done, like in case of Microsoft’s Unified Update Platform, it is called Differential download packages. A full build is a self-contained update that contains all files for the update, and does not rely on any files on your device. Canonical download packages tend to be larger in size and may take longer to download.
Now, the idea of Differential download package does sounds really simple, however, as Microsoft’s Laura Butler points out in a Twitter post, it’s no easy task given the decades of legacy code and patches. Essentially, for a major release like the Creators Update, users will still need to download a full build obviously, but how the Unified Update Platform comes in play is that after that full build, the next feature update would be selective, and consequently significantly smaller. For Windows Insiders those downloads should be even smaller, but it’s a bit of a trade-off since those systems get hit with more frequent updates.
Laura Butler Tweet : This is incredible work. Nobody understands how complex it is, with decades of legacy and apps and FoDs and service patches and versioning.
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