More than 4 GB per month on average, sometimes 5. Microsoft had however promised the opposite two years ago.
Windows Monthly Update is running in the backgroundwe don’t see her passing. That’s probably just as well. Once examined closely, the addition is less discreet: cumulative updates downloaded from the Microsoft Update Catalog now regularly exceed 4 GB, and some flirt with 5. Once extracted, the counter climbs to almost 9 GB. For comparison, in 2024, the same update weighed around 300 MB. Windows Latest who made the complete addition, based on a technical analysis of the blog Out of Office Hours published last fall.
Read also: Windows 11 – Microsoft changes Windows Update from top to bottom
May 2025, the month where everything changed
Before May 2025, Latest Cumulative Updates of Windows 11 24H2 remained below the one and a half gigabyte mark. The April 2025 update KB5059087 was 1,287 MB. The May update, KB5058411, grew to 4 368 Momore than triple in one month. A technical quirk accompanied the jump: the compressed MSU file grew by 3 GB, the decompressed file by only 2.5 GB. Usually the opposite happens, compression narrows the gap instead of widening it.
7-Zip analysis reveals the cause. Dozens of MSIX files absent in April appeared in May, including PSTokenizer, Text Recognition Session, PSOnyxRuntime, Query Processor Session or Image Search Session. All components related to semantic search and local AI, running on the Onyx runtime that Microsoft also provides to developers. The additional 3 GB are there. These components are also on-board even on machines incapable of running them. Client-side filtering logic (Express updates and Unified Update Platform) reduces the actual download to 1.5 or 2 GB at the end user. The basic package remains obese on the server side.
The solution promised by Microsoft, silently abandoned
In July 2024, Microsoft unveiled the Checkpoint Cumulative Updatespresented as the solution to update bloat. The principle: instead of rebuilding each update from the original RTM version, periodic “checkpoints” serve as new bases. The following months then only contain the changes since the last checkpoint. On paper, lighter downloads, faster installations. The first checkpoint was established in September 2024. Updates then continued until April 2025.
Read also: Windows 11 – Microsoft begins removing Copilot from its applications
And then nothing more. No new checkpoint has been deployed since September 2024, that is to say nineteen months. The mechanism supposed to prevent size drift is running idle. Each update always starts from the baseline of a year and a half ago, accumulating components along the way. For individuals, filters further reduce damage. For businesses, it’s another matter. The annual storage cost increased to 52 GB per architecture and per distribution point in 2026compared to 11 GB in 2024. Multiply by five distribution points in an average organization, and the addition is no longer anecdotal.
The technical means to decouple these components from the main pipeline exist: delivery via the Store, download on demand. Microsoft simply hasn’t taken the plunge. macOS, whose updates weigh 1 to 3 GB, demonstrates that the modular model works. Microsoft promised the same path two years ago, and today is doing exactly the opposite.
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By: Opera
Source :
WIndows Latest
