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Windows 10 quality updates explained and the end of delta updates

Mike Benson's avatar
Mike Benson
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Jul 11, 2018
Update 2/5/2019: Based on customer feedback, we are extending Delta update publication for Windows 10 versions 1607, 1703, 1709, and 1803. We will continue to provide Delta updates via the Microsoft ...
Updated May 29, 2019
Version 3.0
servicing and updates
Mike Benson's avatar
Mike Benson
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Jan 23, 2019

Hello Brian,

There is a single LCU for each architecture (x86, amd64, arm64) and it includes all the OS updates for every SKU and edition in that one file.  When we build the LCU, we will have new versions of those system32 files you mentioned, and any device which has an older version of that file will install the newest.  For example, if tcpip.sys gets updates (even if it's just a date/time stamp) then all devices will have that updated version of tcpip.sys on their device.  

 

The case where you wouldn't have an updated file get installed is an optional feature and the file itself doesn't even exist on your system.  For example, if you don't have the Spanish language enabled then the LCU won't install updated spanish language files on your device.  Those files do exist in the LCU though, so if you enable Spanish at some point, it will re-apply the latest LCU and ensure you do have the latest Spanish language files.

 

Technically we could create different LCU's for every SKU and optional feature combination but that would be a huge pain for customers (especially enterprises) to manage and validate in their environments.

 

Thanks,

Mike