Throughout the past few years, Microsoft has been slowly and steadily reducing the size of the downloads for their monthly Patch Tuesday releases. As WSUS updates continue to become smaller, this has seemed to culminate with the release of Windows 11 in which WSUS updates are 40% smaller than updates for Windows 10. Here’s How.
2018 Change To Updates
In 2018, Microsoft made changes to how users downloaded updates by creating differential or delta variants of newly released WSUS updates. Basically, this means that instead of downloading a full new version of an old feature, the user downloads an updated or differential patch for the existing version. This significantly reduced the size of the average Patch Tuesday download and paved the way for smaller updates in WSUS for Windows 11.
Reducing Updates
Over time, as more and more updates accumulated, the WSUS Scan Cab –containing security information for metadata– began to become too large and unruly for the average client (either workstation or server). This is why Microsoft began to prune the metadata from old and obsolete features to reduce their overall size and functionality. Starting just next month–March of 2022–a more reduced and efficient version of WSUS Scan Cab will be the only one available for use.
How WAM Is Valuable To Windows 11 WSUS Updates
WAM is particularly valuable to what Microsoft is trying to achieve by reducing the size of their WSUS Windows 11 updates. The goal of reducing these updates to 40% smaller than their Windows 10 counterparts is to increase the speed, functionality, and efficiency of Microsoft server users. The goal of WAM (WSUS Automated Maintenance) is to afford users the efficiency they deserve by automatically carrying out the necessary maintenance in Microsoft’s recommended maintenance guide, including the deletion of old and superseded updates. If you’ve found that your user experience has been improved by the reduction of WSUS Windows 11 updates, you’ll find that WAM can help to further improve your overall experience through your computer’s speed and productivity.
Easily purchase WAM online and save time on WSUS maintenance.
At AJ Tek, our vision is to make IT simple and automated for other IT professionals. Our flagship product is WAM, WSUS Automated Maintenance. This system performs all of the tasks that a WSUS Administrator needs to do to maintain WSUS properly only leaving the approving of updates and reporting to the WSUS Administrator.
Interested in past release notes? You can find them on our site.
