Installing updates has always been a problem with Windows 10. Microsoft now seems to have found a solution.
With Windows 10, Microsoft has switched to providing new updates every month. Security patches in particular reach users in a timely manner. However, the company has difficulties in actually delivering the updates to the end devices. This is apparently due to the computers not being on long enough.
Microsoft advises leaving the PC on overnight
In a post on the Microsoft IT Pro Blog, the company published the results of an investigation into why Windows devices often do not run the current operating system version. The company found that many Windows devices simply aren’t connected to the internet long enough to reliably install updates. Microsoft can detect this using the “Update Connectivity” parameter. This tracks how long a Windows device is connected to the internet and can access Microsoft services.
Probably the most important finding of the study: a computer must be connected to the Internet for at least two hours without interruption and be connected for an additional six hours in order to reliably install an update. This means that a Windows device must be switched on and connected for a total of eight hours. The most important thing is the first two hours, during which the connection to the Microsoft services must not be interrupted. In the six additional hours, an interruption by switching off or restarting is possible.
Microsoft therefore recommends leaving the computer switched on and connected overnight to successfully complete the update process.
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Older Windows 10 versions are particularly affected
By measuring ‘update connectivity’, Microsoft has also identified which computers are not successfully installing updates. According to the report, half of the devices running an outdated version of Windows do not meet the required eight hours of “update connectivity”. One speaks of obsolete Windows versions when Microsoft no longer provides support for them. You can find an overview of which versions these are here. But the eight-hour criterion is not met in other cases either. A quarter of Windows 10 devices that are still supported by Microsoft but have not installed security updates for 60 days are also affected.
Windows 11 is less affected by the update issues. For the new Windows version, Microsoft compresses the updates into smaller packages, so that less time is required for the download.