The 24H2 version of Windows 11, released on October 1, includes many new features. But other things, like Windows Update improvements, cannot be seen with the naked eye. In a new blog post, Microsoft explained how background changes make it possible to speed up installation times and significantly reduce resource consumption.
Windows 11 version 24H2 maintenance stack improvements lead to 45.6% faster installation times, 39.7% faster when installing cumulative updates “well” compared to Windows 11 version 22H2 (and 23H2 since both versions share the same maintenance stack) enabled reboots and 15% less CPU usage. -maintained devices”.
Older systems with much older updates showed similar performance gains. Microsoft tested the improvements on a device with an 18-month-old Windows installation, and the experiment showed 43.6% faster installation times, 33.5% faster reboot times, and 25% less CPU usage.
by words MicrosoftAll these improvements were made possible by the following changes:
- Parallel processing of component declarations. This complements the parallel hydration of recently maintained components using reverse and forward differentials, first introduced in Windows 11 version 22H2.
- Optimized reading and parsing of component declarations. After the initial reading and analysis, we cache the results for use later in the process. This increases efficiency when the same component is referenced in multiple packages.
- Scalable use of available RAM. If notification cache is available, we use more RAM for storage, otherwise we use less RAM.
But these aren’t just cumulative updates. Microsoft says feature updates are now more efficient thanks to improvements in the way the operating system manages its applications for incoming messages. This change was first introduced in Windows 11 version 22H2, but now also includes Microsoft Edge, which adds another 200MB from the total size of the feature update.
If you want to try all these improvements and benefit from Windows Update’s improved performance, check out our guide on how to update Windows 11 to 24H2, including on unsupported devices.