Microsoft Details Under-the-Hood Improvements in Windows 11 24H2: Speeds Up Patch Installation and Reduces Resource Consumption
Brook.X
In early October, Microsoft launched the official version of Windows 11 24H2 and began rolling it out in phases to devices that meet the requirements. The new version includes many visible new features and changes, but there are also some under-the-hood changes that might not be as noticeable.
Thus, Microsoft has specifically released information about the under-the-hood changes in this version, especially concerning optimizations to the Windows Update service. These optimizations can speed up the installation of cumulative updates and reduce the consumption of hardware resources.
According to Microsoft's tests on experimental devices, the installation time for cumulative updates on Windows 11 24H2 has increased by 43.6%, the reboot time has been sped up by 33.5%, and CPU usage during the update process has been reduced by up to 25%. The optimization effects are indeed very significant.
Microsoft also introduced how these improvements were achieved:
- Parallel processing of component manifests: This supplements the mechanism introduced in Windows 11 22H2 for parallel processing of service components using backward and forward differentials.
- Optimized reading and parsing of component manifests: After the initial reading and parsing, the system caches the results for subsequent processes. If a component is referenced in multiple packages, this helps improve efficiency.
- Scalable use of available RAM: If available, the system will use more RAM to store the manifest cache; if RAM is scarce, it will use less RAM.
These optimizations are not only used for installing cumulative updates on Windows 11 24H2 but also benefit system pre-installed apps and feature updates, meaning future updates can have enhanced performance.
However, these improvements might not be easily noticeable, as installing cumulative updates still takes some time, and even if a few minutes are shaved off, it might not feel significant.
