Starting March 28th, Windows updates will be much smaller

Microsoft will switch to the unified update platform next week. As a result, Windows updates will take up to thirty percent less space.

You may not have noticed, but the security update that Microsoft rolled out on March 14th for Windows 11 2022 devices (KB5023706), it was the end of an era. As announced in February, Microsoft will switch to a version of Unified update platform. Microsoft delivers security and feature updates to an on-premise environment.

The on-prem platform combines cumulative updates with feature code. This eliminates the need for an additional update. The number of feature updates for endpoint clients is also decreasing. On-premises UUP works more closely with Windows Service Update Services (WSUS) and Microsoft Configuration Manager as of version 2203.

Smaller, faster…

Thanks to the new platform, update files will be reduced by up to thirty percent. As a result, the installation will take up less memory and, above all, take less time. This especially will be music to the ears of companies, who often delay updates now to avoid system crashes. Over time, the unified update platform will become the only way to pull Windows 11 updates.

There is a problem with the first update within the new cycle. Or say a big hanger, because you will have to first install UUP locally on your machine. For this you can expect a solid 10GB update. So next Tuesday’s update may take a little more time, but Windows Update should be a much smoother process after that.

…but also better?

In addition to lighter and faster updates, we hope that UUP will also contribute to more stable updates. Because as usual, the March 14th update brought some problems. Copy speed has slowed down significantly and users are also reporting that they are suddenly getting notifications that their hardware no longer meets the system requirements because TPM 2.0 Suddenly it is no longer recognized.