Delivery of Windows 10 Insider Preview Builds “Paused” for Transition to UUP

Delivery of Windows 10 Insider Preview Builds "Paused" for Transition to UUP

Microsoft quietly revealed last night that it is pausing the delivery of Windows 10 Insider Preview builds for PCs so that it can transition to the new Unified Update Platform delivery system.

“We are getting ready to start releasing PC builds to Insiders using UUP,” a short update from Microsoft’s Dona Sarkar reads. “To prepare for this, we are going to pause all PC builds for both the Fast and Slow rings starting [last night, Friday December 2]. We will begin flighting the latest builds via UUP starting with our internal rings first then to Insiders based on each ring’s promotion criteria. We’re excited to be able to release builds for PC to Insiders using UUP.”

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

As you may recall, Microsoft announced its Unified Update Platform (UUP) technologies about a month ago with the of making the delivery of Windows updates more efficient, a key need in this age of Windows as a service. As described by Microsoft, UUP has three key benefits:

Reduction of update download size. Using differential technologies, Microsoft will be able to deliver only the changes needed on a device-by-device basis, rather than require a full build download. The firm estimates that users will see update download size reduced by 35 percent on major Windows updates, though the real impact won’t be felt until after the Creators Update ships in Spring 2017.

More efficient method for checking for new updates. Microsoft is also revamping how Windows 10 checks for updates. “We are reducing the update data sent to client devices as well as the amount of processing we are doing on devices,” Microsoft Director Bill Karagounis explained in November. Basically, the check will now occur in the cloud, not on the device, a change that will lead to faster checks for updates. Karagounis noted that Mobile will see a more dramatic performance benefit than PC.

Bring the best of PC to Mobile. With UUP, Mobile will be able to jump to the latest build in one “hop” just like PC does today. That is, Mobile users will no longer need to sometimes install prerequisite builds before they can move forward to the most recent build.

UUP flighting of builds rolled out to Mobile devices in the Insider program starting in November, and at that time Microsoft said it would rollout UUP in stages. So this pause represents the beginning of the second phase, where PC-based Insiders builds will also start to be delivered via UUP. Later, Windows 10 for IoT and HoloLens will be brought on board as well. And then the public shipping builds of Windows 10 will be transitioned to this new system later in 2017.

 

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Conversation 21 comments

  • 5530

    03 December, 2016 - 9:50 am

    <p>Will&nbsp;UUP reduce the time needed to install the update, though? My experience with the Anniversary Update was that it was that it took waaaay too long and was quite disruptive.</p>

    • 127

      Premium Member
      03 December, 2016 - 10:18 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#28399">In reply to </a><a href="../../../users/FalseAgent">FalseAgent</a><a href="#28399">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <blockquote><em>That update wasn’t UUP</em></blockquote>
      <p>&nbsp;</p>

      • 5394

        03 December, 2016 - 10:39 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#28402">In reply to </a><a href="../../../users/Bart">Bart</a><a href="#28402">:</a></em></blockquote>
        <p>Obviously&nbsp;</p>

    • 3148

      03 December, 2016 - 11:55 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#28399">In reply to </a><a href="../../../users/FalseAgent">FalseAgent</a><a href="#28399">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Okay, so here’s how I think it works. The installastion process will STILL* be like before. That is, the OS will install by applying a new image and moving the old image in the Windows.old folder. But my guess is that rather than DOWNLOADING a full OS image each time, the new process will download the differences in existing version and new version and then *BUILD* a local image using files from existing install and the newly downloaded files and apply this image for install.</p>
      <p>I’ll have to try out the new system to be sure that this is the case</p>
      <p>&nbsp;</p>

      • 2

        Premium Member
        03 December, 2016 - 3:10 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#28409">In reply to </a><a href="../../../users/NazmusLabs">NazmusLabs</a><a href="#28409">:</a></em></blockquote>
        <p>This sounds plausible. I don’t believe there is any change from a UI perspective.</p>

      • 5530

        04 December, 2016 - 1:57 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#28409">In reply to </a><a href="../../../users/NazmusLabs">NazmusLabs</a><a href="#28409">:</a></em></blockquote>
        <p>Quite disappointing if it plays out like that. Downloading the update wasn’t the painful bit for me, it was the installation, because during which you can’t use the computer.</p>

  • 442

    03 December, 2016 - 8:51 pm

    <p>OK, if Dona Sarkar had an announcement on this, how was it a "quietly announced" statement?&nbsp; Is she not the spokes person for releases?&nbsp; Sorry, just wondering….</p>

    • 742

      Premium Member
      04 December, 2016 - 4:59 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#28457">In reply to </a><a href="../../../users/Narg">Narg</a><a href="#28457">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>It was quiet from the point of view that this announcement was tacked onto an existing blog post (as&nbsp;an update)&nbsp;about build 14977 going to Windows 10 Mobile devices. It wasn’t a specific blog post about this topic.</p>

  • 2068

    04 December, 2016 - 6:59 pm

    <p>Why do I have a feeling that UUP uses the Bittorrent protocol to check and deliver the updates. &nbsp;</p>

  • 1775

    07 December, 2016 - 2:00 pm

    <p>&gt;…with the [goal] of making the delivery…</p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC