Does this mark the end of service packs for the consumer versions of Windows?
–PC Pitstop.
New World of Windows Updates
By Richard Hay for Windows Observer
This day has been coming for some time.
It used to be that Microsoft would release a version of Windows about every three years.
Incremental updates, you know the Windows X.X type updates or in the past Service Packs (SP) before Windows 8, would come out after the release of a new version of Windows every 12-18 months or so.
There used to be common belief that you always waited for the first SP of a Windows OS before making an upgrade because that first update usually addressed any issues the OS had upon release.
This new Windows world of updates might change that philosophy.
Since the release of Windows 8 there has not been one SP released for Microsoft’s controversial OS. It did get an incremental upgrade last October, Windows 8.1, which certainly tweaked the OS UI to make it more accommodating to desktop users but it was not called a SP. Then earlier this year, in April, we had what was labeled Windows 8.1 Update which contained OS related updates that further enhanced the OS for desktop, non touch users.
With today’s Patch Tuesday updates Microsoft will not only release security related fixes to all their actively supported OS’s but Windows 8.1 will receive several updates to the functionality of the OS. These updates are not on the level of Windows 8.1 or the Windows 8.1 Update but they are more than just security fixes.
This excerpt appears with permission from Windows Observer.
