Windows Update

This past week-end I started Windows update on the new PC. The update feature is configured to update Windows and nothing else. (At some point I will ask it to update other things. For now, updating Windows is a sufficient test.)

There are lots of updates for Windows 7(RC). I downloaded and applied the "serious" updates on Sunday. They went quickly and had no problems. There were thirty or so "optional" updates, all of them language pack updates. I have been applying these in batches, due to the total size. In total, the updates are 1GB in size; I believe that is the download size and the actual update is larger when uncompressed.

The updates, even in batches, take a bit of time to download (about an hour for four or five update files) and then a bunch more time to apply (about thirty minutes for the same updates). The download process consumes all external network bandwidth, and the update process requires a lot of disk activity. It seems like a lot of activity for updates to language packs. But then maybe I don't understand the method that Microsoft used to store its text information; maybe MS uses lots of files for each application.

The Windows Update process and the Windows Power Management function work poorly together. Since the updates take so long, I start a set and then walk away from the PC. After a period of no activity on the keyboard and mouse, the Windows Power Management routines kick in and put Windows in "sleep" mode. This stops the update process. I would expect them to be more coordinated. Re-trying the operation has reported success, so there seems to be no permanent harm.

The Windows Update process also creates "restore points", which I assume are a set of backup files that can be restored in the event of an update problem. It's nice to know that I have these backups... but I can't manage them. That is, I see no way to look at different restore points and possible discard some. (I know that they take disk space, and perhaps I want it back.) Also, Windows has a separate feature called "Windows Backups" which are independent of restore points. These are apparently user-requested backups and different from the backups of restore points.

I'm trying to schedule updates for "off" periods. Since they consume network bandwidth, they interfere with my "normal" work, such as checking job boards, using on-line documents, and posting to this blog.