Microsoft Simplifies Windows Updates, Google Duo Challenges FaceTime… [Tech News Digest]

Microsoft simplifies Windows Update, Google Duo lets you chat with friends, Google kills Hangouts on Air, Minecraft VR comes to Oculus Rift, and why Elon Musk thinks we’re living in a computer simulation.

A Windows 7 and 8 Updates Update

Microsoft is changing the way it delivers updates for Windows 7 and Windows 8. Rather than releasing individual patches for these operating systems, and letting users choose which patches to install and which to ignore, all patches will now be released in a monthly rollup. What’s more, one month’s rollup will supersede the previous month’s rollup.

This means you should only ever have to download and install one update, which will include all previous patches, and bring your PC up-to-date in one fell swoop. However, it does take away some element of choice, as you will no longer be able to pick and choose which updates to install. For better or worse, it will be a case of all of nothing.

Automatic Windows updates are a maddening thing. It's taken about 10 mins just to get to 10% updated.

— William J. Upton (@wupton) August 16, 2016

These monthly rollups will initially only contain new updates, but over the next year, Microsoft will be integrating all previous updates released since “the last baseline”. When this process is complete, the monthly rollup will be fully cumulative. The idea is to both simplify the process and to avoid fragmentation.

This is a good move form Microsoft, bringing the Windows 10 model to previous versions of its operating system. Windows Update has always been an annoying and overly complicated part of using Windows. It’s essential, of course, but simplifying it is a good start to making it less of a hassle. Even if the act of simplification means stripping away an element of user choice.