Microsoft delivers the latest Windows security and user experiences updates monthly. Updates are modular meaning that, regardless of which update you currently have installed, you only need the most recent quality update to get your machine up to date.
With the fast pace of Windows security and quality fixes, distributing this large amount of updated content takes up substantial bandwidth. Reducing this network transfer is critical for a great experience. Moreover, users on slower networks can struggle to keep their machines up to date with the latest security fixes if they cannot download the package.
This is the kind of grunt work that doesn’t get flashy slides in a presentation or a mention in a commercial, but it’s awesome work nonetheless.
As far as I understood this kind of update has to process all the deltas which makes installation twice as long. So maybe we save a minute on downloading but we lose ten minutes on installing. Of course installation time is not a problem for Microsoft but bandwidth from their servers to everyone at home is. They do mention that not regressing installation time was a goal though. Also available in windows. 10
Delta updates are nothing new. It’s nice to see Microsoft trying to embrace them more than they already have.
sometimes it’s the sub-par infrastructure that leads to great improvements.
just like when cpu clocks hit the wall, new ways to make things faster appeared.