Microsoft has announced that the company is looking into solutions to slim down the size of Windows 10 for enterprise customers. The company claimed that it’s expensive and time-consuming for Enterprise customers to download the whole Windows 10 files to update the device.
Until now, Microsoft used to release two major versions of Windows 10- x64 and x86, both of which were over 4 GB in size. This was an issue for enterprise users as they had to download the updates on multiple devices. Microsoft has now offered a solution to the problem by slimming down the updates. Starting September 27, Microsoft is offering a slimmed down version of Windows 10 versions 1703, 1709, and 1803. These new updates will be around 2.6 GB which is far less than the original 4.8 GB of updates. The new updates will be available through Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or connected to System Center Configuration Manager and will be released as Electronic Software Distribution (ESD) files.
However, it does come with its own limitations. Since the size is decreased, Microsoft will no longer bundle Cumulative updates, language packs and other security updates. These will have to be downloaded separately once the new feature update is installed. That said, its a great initiative towards saving bandwidth as Microsoft will now allow customers to choose if they want ad-on like language packs and cumulative updates.