Windows users face massive update bloat, tough choices

[Rustys]

New cumulative updates for Windows 7 will swell to 500MB a month, Microsoft acknowledges.

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Windows 10’s cumulative updates have ballooned in size, and a similar bloat will also affect the Windows 7 updates that Microsoft revamped this month.

According to data published last month by LANDesk and refreshed by Computerworld with October’s numbers, Windows 10 cumulative updates for the three versions of the new OS have surged in size.

Updates for Windows 10 version 1507—the debut that launched in July 2015—have grown 153% (for the 32-bit edition) and 181% (64-bit), from 184MB and 368MB to 466MB and 1,034MB (or over a gigabyte), respectively, in just over a year.

Those for version 1511—Windows 10’s first “feature update,” issued in November 2015—exploded in comparison: The first 64-bit 1511 update was 49MB, but the cumulative update released earlier this month was a whopping 989MB, for a growth rate of 1,918% in under 12 months.

The newest Windows 10, version 1607—released in early August—has also expanded, with the 64-bit edition climbing 591% from 113MB in August to 781MB this month.

“Cumulative updates start out big and become enormous over time,” Stephen Brown, director of product management at LANDesk, a maker of enterprise endpoint management software, wrote in a post to a company blog on Sept. 21.

Updates increase in size because they are cumulative; October’s 989MB update for 1511 included not only new fixes, but also those in every prior update. September’s, in turn, included new fixes as well as those in August’s and July’s and June’s and…

And so on and so on.

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