I Wish Windows Updates Were Like Apple's
By
Staten Island, NY Posted: 3/1/2017 1:00:00 AM
My MacOS is version 10.12.3. What's YOUR Windows version?
Microsoft and Apple have two entirely different ways to handle operating system versions and updates. Every time Apple updates iOS, MacOS, TVOS, and WatchOS, they update their version numbers to reflect the changes. This means that EVERY iPhone with version 10.2.1 has EXACTLY the same system files, and every MacOS version 10.2.3 has the same system files and capabilities.
This is particularly important for Application Developers. All they need to do is check the version number to know if their software is compatible, because they know every device with that particular version has the same capabilities and system files.
Microsoft on the other hand uses an altogether different approach to version numbers and updates. The only time two Windows computers have the same system files is the day they were taken out of the box. After that, the two system folders will be completely different, depending on which patches the owner downloads. To make thing even more complex, Microsoft keeps copies of every patch and update in a folder so that you can optionally remove it.
Keeping all the installer, and uninstaller programs and patches takes up a ton of disk space. The Windows folder on a fresh installation of Windows that starts out around 5 GB can eventually swell to over 100 GB, because of all the old patches.
I'd love to see Microsoft follow Apple's method, and simply roll out updates that REPLACE previous versions, and each time they roll out a patch or update, they should change the Windows version number to reflect a number that represents the particular combination of the latest versions of all their system files. When you have Windows version 10.5.5, it should be the same as 10.5.5 on ANY Windows PC.
Joe Crescenzi, Founder
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