Microsoft Ends Individual Updates For Windows 7 And 8.1, Moves To Windows 10 Rollup Model
Microsoft said that its past approach allowed customers to be “selective with the updates you deployed”, but it also lead to fragmentation among PCs, which in turn lead to numerous problems; especially for its enterprise customers. Microsoft cites an increase in “sync and dependency errors” and lower overall update quality for customers.
Beginning in October, Microsoft will release all Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 updates using a “Monthly Rollup”. These rollups, which will address both security and reliability issues with Windows, will be made available via Windows Update, WSUS, SCCM, and the Microsoft Update Catalog.
In addition, Microsoft will make available a “Security-only” update that is released on a monthly basis. While the Monthly Rollup will be cumulative in nature (meaning a December Monthly Rollup would also include security update and patches from October and November), this update will – surprise, surprise – exclusively address security issues addressed for that particular month. Likewise, patches for individual exploits will no longer be released.
Microsoft explains:
The new rollup model gives you fewer updates to manage, greater predictability, and higher quality updates. The outcome increases Windows operating system reliability, by eliminating update fragmentation and providing more proactive patches for known issues. Getting and staying current will also be easier with only one rollup update required. Rollups enable you to bring your systems up to date with fewer updates, and will minimize administrative overhead to install a large number of updates.
So what do you folks think? Is Microsoft making the right move by streamlining the update process for consumers and businesses, or do you prefer to apply updates individually to minimize compatibility issues?
