Microsoft upgrades Windows 7 and 8.1 overhauling - yet don't call it an administration pack

The status of Win 8.1 is still misty, however it would seem that upgrades to Win7 will (at long last!) run much quicker.

In a TechNet post called "Streamlining upgrades for Windows 7 and 8.1," Microsoft engineer Nathan Mercer has brilliant news for Windows 7 clients - especially those who've put in a long stretch of time (and days) sitting tight for Windows Updates.

While it shuns the out-dated expression "administration pack," Mercer's declaration is precisely that.

Here's the way he puts it:

We're making accessible another comfort rollup for Windows 7 SP1 ... [it] contains all the security and non-security fixes discharged subsequent to the arrival of Windows 7 SP1 that are reasonable for general appropriation, up through April 2016. Introduce this one overhaul, and afterward you just need new redesigns discharged after April 2016.... This accommodation redesign is totally discretionary; it doesn't need to be introduced and won't be offered by means of Windows Update - you can pick regardless of whether you need to utilize it.

The Microsoft Update Catalog webpage is so antiquated, it requires Internet Explorer and an ActiveX control.

The downloaded bundle - recognized as KB 3125574, at 477MB for 64-bit frameworks - doesn't yet have a related Knowledge Base article, nor are there any establishment guidelines for the downloaded document (double tap on the record finishing in .msu to conjure the Windows Update Standalone Installer).

Most confounding, the report on offer is plainly set apart as a Windows 7 upgrade. There's no comparable to overhaul for Windows 8.1 yet.

Mercer goes ahead to say:

Additionally today we are declaring that non-security upgrades for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 (and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2) will be accessible as a month to month rollup (repairs moved together into a solitary overhaul). Every month, we will discharge a solitary upgrade containing the greater part of the non-security fixes for that month. We are rolling out this improvement - moving to rollup overhauls, to enhance the dependability and nature of our updates.... These fixes will be accessible through Windows Update, WSUS, and SCCM and also the Microsoft Update inventory. We trust this month to month rollup redesign rearranges your procedure of keeping Windows 7, and 8.1 avant-garde.

That ought to come as an enormous alleviation to the 50 percent of Windows clients who are still on Windows 7.

I read it as Windows 7 Service Pack 2 and (potentially, sooner or later) Windows 8.1 Service Pack 1. Be that as it may, it doesn't mind. You can call it anything you like, the length of it works.

Tests are in progress.