Life will be easier. Windows 7 and 8.1 are moving to the cumulative update model

The first monthly cumulative update will be released in October

In May 2016, Microsoft did a good job and collected all the updates for the Windows 7 operating system since the release of SP1 in 2011 into a single package of Convenience Rollup . The cumulative package is published on the official website of the Microsoft Update Catalog.

Then in May, the company announced that non-security updates for Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 will be released as a single package every month. Now due to numerous requests from users, Microsoft has decided to make some changes to the procedure. It was decided that the updates will be not just monthly, but cumulative , that is, at any given time only the most current update will be available, which includes all previous ones. This will greatly facilitate the life of system administrators and ordinary users.

Due to the transition to the model of cumulative monthly updates, Microsoft expects to solve several problems. The most important of them is fragmentation, when all the operating systems on users' computers differ from each other, that is, there are different sets of updates installed on all of them. Due to different combinations of installed system files, dependency errors and a problem with installing new updates occur. Often there were situations when to install one update, you had to install the previous one, and for the previous one, in turn, you had to install another one. Now users will not have such a headache.
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Eliminating fragmentation and cumulative updates simplifies system administration and reduces the effort required to install updates.

The unified monthly cumulative updates of the Monthly Rollup company Microsoft will begin to produce from October 2016. Updates will be published in Windows Update (WU), WSUS, SCCM, as well as on the Microsoft Update Catalog site. By the way, from this site will soon remove the ActiveX component, so that it will work in any browser, not just IE.

The October update package will include all updates for the last month. The next November package will replace it, that is, it will include the October package and all the latest updates. New cumulative updates via Windows Update (WU) and WSUS will be distributed via express packages, that is, as additions to the previous package, to save traffic and disk space.

Gradually, Microsoft will include in the cumulative package and those updates that came out in previous years, so that it will become truly cumulative.

Microsoft promises to report in detail what specific KBs are included in each package, and to issue release notes, as in Windows 10.

It is not entirely clear whether the user will have a choice, which updates to install, and which ones to refuse. As you know, along with Microsoft security updates sometimes slips unnecessary updates . Hopefully, the standard command for removing unwanted updates will work as before.

wusa.exe /kb:3080149 /uninstall /quiet /norestart

Instead of /kb:3080149 here you should specify the update number to delete.

In addition to the cumulative package of Monthly Rollup (security updates + regular updates), Microsoft will begin to issue monthly security updates separately from October, which include all security patches for the month. These patches will no longer be distributed one by one . And individual security updates will not be available through Windows Update, but only through WSUS, SCCM and Microsoft Update Catalog.

Finally, the .NET Framework update also moves to the monthly system. Regular patches and security updates will be included in the .NET Framework Monthly Rollup update. Microsoft emphasizes that the update will be intended only for the current version of the .NET Framework, and it will not automatically upgrade to a newer version. In addition to the usual package, developers are now preparing a separate package only with security updates. NET Framework.

With cumulative updates, life for users of Windows 7 and 8.1 will be easier. The new system should work the same as in Windows 10.