Microsoft has penned a new Tech Community blog post letting organizations that the Unified Update Platform (UUP) mechanism for updates will go online from March 28. With the launch of UUP on-premises, organizations will be able to expect smaller update downloads, however, on next week’s update, there will be a one-time 10GB download. Once that’s installed, you’ll be ready for future updates via UUP.
In the first update, due March 28, Microsoft will re-release the KB5023706 update to eligible devices. The update won’t contain any other fixes but it will enable future UUP updates. This update will go out to distribution points in your organization but endpoint clients that already got the KB5023706 update from March 14 will not install the update.
Explaining in its own terms, Microsoft said:
“To summarize, UUP is the future of Windows 11, version 22H2 updates. If your WSUS or Microsoft Configuration Manager is configured to sync, your organization will start syncing the extra 10GB download after March 28th. It"s just a one-time download to distribution points. Thereafter, all Windows 11, version 22H2 updates will be UUP on-premises updates, and downloads to distribution points will be the same size as pre-UUP updates.”
The shift to UUP is not just some silly renaming project from Microsoft, it does actually bring tangible improvements to updates on Windows 11 for organizations. Monthly quality update client downloads are 30% smaller, there’s cumulative update integration with feature updates which lets you get current in one reboot, there’s automatic OS healing during the update process that doesn’t require admin intervention and more.