Want smaller updates for Windows 11? Naturally, everyone does – the smaller the better – and there’s some good news on this front, namely that most updates for the OS will be a lot more manageable, download-wise, soon enough.
This is because Microsoft is introducing a system of ‘checkpoint cumulative updates’ starting from the release of Windows 11 24H2 later this year (and indeed with Windows Server 2025, too).
Cumulative updates are the main monthly updates delivered to your Windows 11 PC (on the second Tuesday of every month), and the idea here is that much smaller updates are applied on top of milestone ‘checkpoint’ updates, ones that only make tweaks to that current checkpoint build.
As Microsoft explains in a blog post: “This will allow you to get features and security enhancements via the latest cumulative update through smaller, incremental differentials containing only the changes since the previous checkpoint cumulative update. This means that you can save time, bandwidth, and hard drive space.”
It’s a very useful step to take with streamlining updates, and we’re likely to see multiple smaller updates coming through, in between the checkpoint cumulative updates that’ll pitch up more rarely (these will be normal-sized downloads).
Analysis: Sterling work from Microsoft
What’s really happening, as Ghacks, who spotted this, points out, is that you can think of a ‘checkpoint cumulative update’ as a new base patch version for Windows 11. So, a bit like an entirely new version (such as 23H2, 24H2), but only for recently applied security fixes and other patches. Normally, these would all be bundled up in every single cumulative update, but now, as the checkpoint updates carry them – providing a new base version – there’s no longer any need to do so (hence the between-checkpoint updates get much trimmer).
All this will happen automatically via Windows Update as usual, and you won’t notice any difference or have to do anything. As noted, the only difference will be most updates (non-checkpoint ones) will be considerably quicker to download and install, and you’ll save a bit of storage space (perhaps an even more important benefit for those with, say, a smaller SSD in an affordable laptop).
When Windows 11 first launched, Microsoft worked to streamline its cumulative updates by using new compression technology. That was a sterling effort, too, and eventually the fruits of that labor – which cut update size by 40% – came to Windows 10 users. Whether this latest change will eventually benefit those on Windows 10 is more doubtful, though, as with its End of Life only just over a year away, Microsoft may not think it’s worthwhile to apply this move to the older operating system.