Microsoft has prepared a report explaining that Windows updates can take up to 8 hours to complete.
Microsoft says Windows devices must be online for at least eight hours to receive the latest updates and ensure that they are installed correctly through Windows Update. The new post, posted on the Microsoft IT Pro Blog by David Guyer, program manager for Windows Updates, has caused controversy among Windows users.
David Guyer, a Microsoft Program Manager, examined how long a device must remain on and be connected to Windows Update in order to successfully install quality and feature updates. The report shows that the Windows device must remain connected for a total of up to eight hours, at least two hours after receiving an update.
Surprised that the Windows 10 update lasted 8 hours
Another description in the post involves Microsoft tracking how long computers are connected to Windows Update and naming the statistics ‘Update Link’. The data is available to administrators in InTune, a component of the Endpoint management pack.
“We found that devices that do not comply with a certain connection time are very unlikely to update successfully,” David Guyer wrote in a blog post.
The blog post provides details of Microsoft’s attempts to understand why some Windows devices don’t get the latest quality and feature updates, and says there needs to be at least two hours of continuous connectivity to get updates. After the release of the Windows update, it takes six hours for a machine to update itself reliably. This means that it can take up to eight hours to receive and install the update.
Microsoft’s figures also revealed that 50 percent of Windows devices running a Windows 10 build that was left behind by Windows Update and is no longer serviced, did not spend enough time downloading and installing patches in the background. However, this figure drops to 25 percent for customers who do not install security updates for 60 days or more.
Windows 11 updates are smaller than packages in Windows 10 thanks to improved compression, and also new Microsoft Graph APIs released last year will help speed up the update process. This means that the eight-hour update time can be shortened with Windows 11.
