Important Changes for Windows Updates Coming in February 2017

Woody Leonhard has been posting about several changes coming to Windows Updates in February 2017 on his AskWoody.com site and Woody on Windows InfoWorld blog that might be of interest for Win 7 and higher users.   Here are four important changes:

  • It appears that Microsoft has finally come up with a permanent fix for the slow Windows Updates for most Win 7 SP1 users that does not require the installation of optional update KB3172605 (i.e., the latest Windows Update Agent v7.6.7601.23453) as instructed in Canadian Tech's thread Windows 7 Update solution in the MS Answers forum.  Microsoft is currently purging several supersedence chains for Win 7 SP1 updates by expiring older updates that have been replaced (superseded) by newer updates.  This means that older versions of the Windows Update Agent should be able to search for available updates in a reasonable amount of time on Win 7 SP1 machines.  See ch100's comments <here> about RAM limitations in Woody's 14-Jan-2017 article Has Microsoft (finally!) solved the Windows 7 slow-update problem?
  • The latest Creators Update beta build 15002 (and 15007) for Win 10 Home now includes a setting that gives users the ability to turn off Windows Update for up to 35 days so that they aren't forced to install potentially buggy patches every Patch Tuesday.  This feature is currently available for Win 10 users with the Professional, Education and Enterprise versions, and the assumption is that this feature will eventually be added to stable releases of Win 10 Home.  According to Woody, the  new Metered Connection feature also included in that beta build will allow Win 10 Home users to completely block forced updates from their settings. See Woody's 10-Jan-2017 article Windows 10 beta build 15002 brings real improvement as well as his 13-Jan-2017 article Win10 Home appears to be getting the “Pause Updates” setting.

------------

32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox v50.1.0 * NIS v22.8.1.14 * MBAM Premium v2.2.1

The Feb changes in the update process is for Windows 7/8/8.1 and not for Windows 10.

RS2 is coming in April.

Jim cool

very interesting, Imacri. Thank you.

I thought that the Creators Update (aka Redstone2) was due to be released in April.

Given the frequency at which Windows Updates fail it will be interesting to see what happens then - especially with the new 3D Paint facility!

I'm trying to get the MS FOs/FMs to create a new thread every time a major Update fail:

https://community.norton.com/en/forums/frequent-failed-cumulative-windows-updates