Windows Update

Windows Update is a utility in the Settings app that keeps your PC up-to-date with security and bug fixes, version upgrades, driver updates, and other updates. The rate at which these updates arrive has increased dramatically in recent years, and Microsoft now reserves the right to update Windows 11 at any time.

You can find Windows Update by opening the Settings app and navigating to > Windows Update.

Use Windows Update to keep Windows up-to-date

Windows Update is configured to run automatically in the background and it will prompt you if a pending update requires you to reboot your PC to complete the installation.

When you visit Windows Update in Settings, you will see different types of updates.

Among them are:

Feature updates. These updates are version upgrades that install a new version of Windows 11. Features updates include new features and bug and security fixes. Microsoft releases one feature update each year, in the second half of the year. The initial release of Windows 11 was known as Windows 11 version 21H2 (representing “the second half of 2021”), while the latest release is Windows 11 version 22H2. All feature updates require you to reboot the PC.

Quality updates. Consisting of both bug and security fixes, this type of update is delivered at least once a month and as often as every week. The main quality update release occurs on the second Tuesday of every month, which is known in Microsoft circles as “Patch Tuesday.” Many quality updates, including those released on Patch Tuesday, require you to reboot your PC.

Servicing stack updates. This special kind of quality update is required when Windows Update itself needs to be updated.

Firmware and driver updates. Microsoft and your PC maker can use Windows Update to issue firmware and driver updates to fix security issues and bugs with your hardware drivers or to add new features. Firmware updates require you to reboot your PC, as do some driver updates.

Security intelligence updates for Microsoft Defender. These small updates update the antivirus and anti-malware capabilities of Windows Defender, a security utility that is included with Windows 11. They are automatically downloaded almost every day, often several times per day.

Microsoft product updates. These optional updates can keep other Microsoft software on your PC up-to-date using Windows Update. This capability is disabled by default.

As noted, Windows Update will automatically install any pending updates for you. But you can, of course, click the “Check for updates” button if you wish to manually check for updates.

Pause updates

As suggested by its name, the “Pause updates” option lets you pause all updates for 7 days. You can select this item repeatedly to add more time to the update pausing in one-week increments, up to 5 weeks total.

To reverse this change, select the “Resume updates” button that appears in place of “Check for updates.”

View your update history

The Update history link displays a page where you can view previously-installed updates, and it’s neatly organized to display feature updates, quality updates, definition updates, and other updates separately in their own collapsible and expandable sections.

The two options below that—“Uninstall updates” and “Recovery”—are useful if you experience reliability issues after installing an update:

Uninstall updates. This option displays a Settings page listing the updates that you can still uninstall. (You can uninstall some, but not all, quality updates.)

Recovery. This option is one of several throughout Settings that brings you to System > Recovery, where you can access system recovery tools like Reset this PC and Advanced startup.

Configure other Windows Update settings

The “Advanced options” link lets you configure other Windows Update settings.

These include:

Receive updates for other Microsoft products. Disabled by default, this option lets you use Windows Update to update other Microsoft products installed on your PC, including Microsoft Office.

Get me up to date. This option, disabled by default, will let you force pending updates to conclude quickly by restarting the PC as soon as possible, even if it’s during Active hours (described below). You will be notified before the PC reboots.

Download updates over metered connections By default, Windows Update will not automatically download most updates over a so-called metered connection, which is a cellular network for which you pay by the amount of data consumed. This option is disabled by default, but you can enable it to download updates over a metered connection.

Notify me when a restart is required to finish updating. By default, Windows 11 will automatically reboot your computer outside of Active hours (see below) when a pending update requires it. If you enable this option—it’s disabled by default—you will be prompted with a notification banner before the PC reboots and finishes an update.

Active hours. By default, Windows 11 monitors how you use your PC and it automatically configures Active hours, based on that usage, so that no updates will reboot the PC during that time. This option will display the configured Active hours, but you can expand it and click the button next to “Adjust active hours” to configure start and end times manually.

Optional updates. This link opens a page where you can view less-crucial software updates, such as driver updates. Here, you can expand any groups—like Driver updates—if necessary, select the updates you wish to install, and then click “Download and install.”

Delivery Optimization. By default, Windows Update uses peer-to-peer networking capabilities to allow PCs on your home network to deliver software updates to each other over that network, reducing your overall Internet bandwidth usage. But you can also enable this capability with other PCs over the Internet too, which might help Microsoft but could result in increased Internet bandwidth for you. So, we recommend leaving it configured as-is.

Other options. The other options you see here—are unrelated to Windows Update (“Recovery” and “Restart apps,”) or, in the case of “Configure update policies,” are not applicable to most end users.