21H1 Feature Update is *quite* slow for a "minor feature update"

[britechguy]

Well, I decided to use the machine I'm typing from, an HP Envy 15 series laptop, 16 GB RAM, i7-4700MQ @2.4GHz processor, Adata SU720 SSD, as a trial balloon for doing an ISO-install of 21H1.

After all the updates were downloaded, and the final part of the process after you've chosen what you want to keep (everything, in my case) is done, it still took about an hour and 15 minutes to actually apply the update.

I'm accustomed to that for the major feature updates, but not the ones like 2004 to 20H2 or 20H2 to 21H1. This is an odd one, at least based on my experiences so far (and those date from the dawn of the Windows 10 era).

Addendum: The ISO file for 21H1 is larger than 4GB, and this hasn't happened for a while, so don't be surprised when you get the dreaded, "Insufficient space," message when you try to copy it to any drive that's formatted as FAT32 even if it's got more than enough space to spare. Use something that's formatted as NTFS.

 

[nlinecomputers]

What build did you upgrade from? If you skipped any builds that can kill the delta upgrade and force a full install.

 

[britechguy]

I went from the very latest version of 20H2 (an update to that was applied early yesterday) to 21H1.

I would not have commented on this had I been making either a multi-version jump-up upgrade or going from some early build of the immediately prior feature update to the latest one. The preceding is not meant to be curt in any way, just to lay out what the state of affairs was and how I generally operate. I've done multi-version jump-up upgrades, but those are never fast.

This was way more like a typical feature update for a major feature update.

 

[Porthos]

I'm accustomed to that for the major feature updates

Whenever you use the MCT or the ISO it is a full upgrade, not a small one no matter what version you are on.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Yeah you have to use the upgrade assistant for the quick update.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I did my laptop and office workstation both earlier this week. Just from the Windows Update box when I checked for updates, it was avail.
Took about 15 minutes on one, I think 20 on the other. Came from prior 20H2

 

[cypress]

Yeah you have to use the upgrade assistant for the quick update.

This is good to know. I use the MCT just today as well and it took over an hour as well. Upgraded from 2004.

 

[britechguy]

Whenever you use the MCT or the ISO it is a full upgrade, not a small one no matter what version you are on.

I'm not going to argue that point. But I will argue that these "smaller feature updates" typically take that long. I do the vast majority of my Feature Updates via the ISO method so that this data does not need to be downloaded again and again and again for each machine. My experience with Delivery Optimization has been less than stellar as far as the hoped-for sharing of stuff that's already been downloaded by one machine by others on my network.

I have not typically had feature updates running this long recently, and particularly once SSDs were in use. That's why I decided to post about it.

 

[phaZed]

My main machine took about 6 minutes

5950x with a NVME gen 4 SSD though....

 

[Porthos]

Enablement packages are delivered by WU and are less than 90Mb

 

[fincoder]

I do the vast majority of my Feature Updates via the ISO method so that this data does not need to be downloaded again and again and again for each machine.

With these newer/smaller feature updates, most of the downloads are already done via updates to the previous version. So if 20H2 has all updates, there is hardly anything else to download when updating via Windows Update. That's one reason why it's so quick doing it that way.

 

[britechguy]

Enablement packages are delivered by WU and are less than 90Mb

There's definitely that, too. I know that a lot of the "quality updates" are, in fact, the staging updates that put all the "under the hood stuff" in place over time. Then that enablement package is just the "thrower of switches" for stuff already in place.

Credit to @fincoder for pointing this out, too.

These days I virtually never do a feature update until and unless Windows Update has offered it on the machine. This time I got the proverbial bee in my bonnet and decided to do an ISO-based update. Doubt that I'll do that again anytime soon.

 

[Porthos]

do an ISO-based update

I am doing that as I type on a new gtx 1660 super Gaming rig.

 

[fincoder]

I just did an in-place upgrade from 2004 to 21H1 on a brand new laptop with i5-1135G7 and NVMe. Contents of ISO copied onto the desktop and run setup from there (choosing no updates during setup, keep all apps and files). Elapsed time including coping ISO contents from Sandisk Ultra flash drive was only 15-20 mins.