this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
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I investigated Windows 11's massive 5GB monthly .msu updates, and AI is only part of the problem (www.windowslatest.com)
submitted 23 hours ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] ArchBtw@ani.social 10 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

The "Any day now" just keeps holding hopeium and copeium. They dont have to deliver if any day is a phrase that keeps people putting off switching.

Side note to any power users that are planning on making the switch that I wish I knew back when I switched. (Types that really want a system thats theirs and dig in) don't start out with a "user friendly distro" go straight to a main bloodline distro like Arch or Debian. Chances are you'll end up on one anyway and it'll save you time distro hopping.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 hour ago

I think that distrohopping is part of the experience for power users.

[–] lordnikon@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago

Bloodline Distro I love that I'm going to start using that from now on for Debian.

[–] deleted@lemmy.world 20 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

The first half of the article is just going in circles. Like a llm repeating it self.

The second half could be written in a sentence.

[–] rimu@piefed.social 16 points 16 hours ago

Yep, it's LLM-generated.

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 7 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

So what you're saying is... AI is part of the problem, like the headline says 😂

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 7 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

Windows is bloated, always has been. Everytime you install an application you are installing another copy of all the libraries that program uses.

I think now that precompiled binaries for Linux systems are becoming more popular, they will also start to suffer from bloat as well. While the universal nature of SNAPS makes them useful, they will inherently take up a lot more space.

Of course the big difference between the two update systems currently is most Linux systems can update all their programs together. I have always found using repositories way better than hunting down updated packages in Windows or having to let each program individually update itself.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 9 hours ago

No you don't.
At least not always.
Example: Visual Studio 2xxx Redistributables

Besides that, the duplication of some parts is higher.
But it can also mitigate dependency hell.

[–] doenietzomoeilijk@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 9 hours ago

now that precompiled binaries for Linux systems are becoming more popular,

Uh, what do you think was in the repositories all these decades? They can contain just the source, but that's not what most people use.

While the universal nature of SNAPS makes them useful, they will inherently take up a lot more space.

Ah, so you're talking about those... Yeah, but for those types of packages, including all the dependencies is kind of the point, they're meant to run on whatever distro where the packager has no influence in what libraries and other dependencies of their software is or.isn't present. They also bolt on things like sandboxing, so it's not entirely the same as the distro packages you get through your apt/dnf/zypper/etc.

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 3 points 14 hours ago

Windows is not bloated! I'm sure windows XP is smaller than debian!

[–] XLE@piefed.social 35 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (2 children)

I love how Microsoft promised to cut down on mandatory updates with K2, and then decided to push several more months' worth of mandatory, massive, device-breaking updates before K2 even starts. They shouldn't have made the announcement until they were ready to commit.

Edit: the K2 promise was March 20.

The K2 results are "any day now." Allegedly some people can already ~~permanently disable~~ keep re-pausing Windows updates. So little so late.

[–] UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 17 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

They shouldn’t have made the announcement until they were ready to commit.

They should print this in bronze and mount it in their boardroom because the present day reputation of Microsoft is that releasing half baked shit that they need to abandon or rebrand later is all that they do.

[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 21 hours ago

I would pin that on a lot of companies' boardrooms

[–] crank0271@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago

You've got to load up on all your favorite foods the day before starting your diet.

[–] n3m37h@sh.itjust.works 20 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Oh μ$lop is the best advertisement for Linux

[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works -3 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

Yes, good thing we can all simply switch to Linux!

Haha! Yay! Good thing jobs aren't a thing!

[–] TheTrueColonel@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

Do you not have personal devices?

[–] n3m37h@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 hours ago

It's not that hard and Linux keeps getting better each week

[–] Throbbing_banjo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 7 hours ago

You seem upset.

[–] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca 1 points 14 hours ago

Was the article written by AI?

[–] haerrii@feddit.org 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Windows updates are large because they’re built to work everywhere, on every configuration, for every enterprise scenario.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 6 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Kind of seems like it'd work better if your PC contained a numeric code. That code would contain everything the update service needs for your specific computer.

For example. If your computer has a display out, it might add 855. And if your display has a touch screen it might add a 99. So now you have 85599. And when your PC sends 85599 to the update service it knows to include all updates with 85599.

But if my pc has a display out, but NOT a touch screen I would only have 855. I would not have 99. So I wouldn't get the touchscreen updates.

Now do this for every single piece of tech a computer might have an update for. If you have usb 2.0, you might get 122. But if you have usb 3.0 you might get 133. And if you have usb type c, you might have 177. Or maybe you have usb 2.0, 3.0 and type c. So you'd have 122133177.

Yes, the number would be quite long, but you'd never need to see or interact with it. It's just a small txt file that windows would send to its server to prepare the relevant updates.

I imagine that cutting down useless bloat would be beneficial for everyone. For example, if I've never used Turkish language, then I could skip 1.2GB of download for downloading the Turkish dictionary.

Why don't they do it like that?

[–] Jesus_666@lemmy.world 3 points 16 hours ago

They do; the article points that out.

However, this doesn't work in enterprise environments. Companies want to download updates once and then deliver then themselves when and to whom they want. And that means they need to download all of them.

These days they're all bundled up in one huge package so companies have to devote a of storage for update files that mostly contain the same stuff as last month's.

[–] UnfortunateShort@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago

RigI nean, yeah, the rest is Windows...