Microsoft will use Feature, Online and Web Experience Packs to deliver Windows features
Microsoft revealed this week how it plans to deliver content to Windows devices outside of the regular feature update and cumulative update process.
Microsoft's Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems will receive one feature update per year going forward, and one cumulative update per month (not counting preview updates). Both can be used to deliver new features to user devices.
Company officials confirmed some time ago that features could also be pushed to Windows devices through other means. Last month, Microsoft announced that it would make some features available for public testing, including the much-awaited integration of the Windows Subsystem for Android.
A new blog post by Amanda Langowski on the official Windows Insider blog sheds some light on how Microsoft plans to deliver features to Windows devices that are not shipped with cumulative updates or the annual feature updates.
We will deliver updates to features and experiences in builds from the Dev and Beta Channels by releasing Feature, Web, and Online Service Experience Packs on top of these builds too.
Langowski mentions Dev and Beta channels, but the entire experience pack system is not limited to these channels.
- Feature Experience Packs -- These push new features and updates to Windows devices when they are updated. They have been used for a while.
- Online Service Experience Packs -- Smaller in nature than Feature Experience Packs, Online Service Experience Packs improve specific experiences. Microsoft names the "new Your Microsoft Account settings page" as an example of such an update.
- Web Experience Packs -- Microsoft provides no description for Web Experience Packs. It could be used to improve web features, e.g. PWAs, Windows Widgets, or support for new technologies.
Closing Words
12 months is a long time when it comes to introducing new features and improvements to operating systems. Microsoft will use Experience Packs in the future to deliver updates to Windows devices outside of the annual feature updates that it will release.
Windows users will get faster access to features that Microsoft picks thanks to the new Experience Packs. Downside is that it may become more difficult to keep control over updates and feature additions. Up until now, Windows administrators could delay the installation of feature updates.
Now You: what is your take on the Experience Packs updating system?
Another update (spy) feature by M$. I will consider upgrade to Arch Linux
“Microsoft will use Feature, Online and Web Experience Packs to deliver Windows features” to bring us a fully functional taskbar, fully functional start menu and a new functional explorer tab! Oh, they don’t, such a disgrace for a while. I hope this today’s cumulative update will help in any way to think that W11 is useful for something without Start11 and other utilities and tricks. :]
>what is your take on the Experience Packs updating system?<
IDK, what's an Experience? An Experience can't be delivered, updated or changed.
Complete and total gibberish; one could replace all that MS marketing nonsense with random nouns, verbs and adjectives and it would mean the same thing, nothing. So f'd up, they don't even know they're f'd up.
MS has far, far too many people getting paid a lot for accomplishing nothing.
I think there is a conspiracy around Microsoft. The conspiracy is that entire planet actually hates Microsoft. But no one can do anything about it because it is a protected monopoly.
…12 months is a long time when it comes to introducing new features and improvements to operating systems.
12 months is nothing given Microsoft’s track record of screwing up everything they do. It takes them at least that long to get it to a “alpha” state as they go back and forth over what they will include and continually add and remove bits. Nightmare development processes.
I’d be happy with a 3 year release cycle. Spend time stabilizing things that are released instead of shoving useless crap down people’s throat every few weeks.
Boy, m$ sure likes to invent a lot of fancy catch phrases. I suppose this is meant to hypnotize its user base into just giving up.
Bloat, bloat, and more bloat. LTSC is the only way to go nowadays.
Remember you do not own Microsoft Windows 8, 10 or 11 operating system but a license to use it.
You also not really “own” your car, since there are many limitations on the way you can use it. Ownership is a complex matter, not only for software.
Let’s just call them what they are: Cumulative Ad-Packs. Each one requires different methods of uninstalling/future blocking and provide no new usability, improvements or security. Only ads, resetting of all previous changes made by the users and endless prompts to create and sign in with a Microsoft account. It’s like getting syphilis every month.
There, I said it.
Is receiving one feature update per year not improving the stability of systems of the user, and one cumulative update per month (not counting preview updates), not enough for fixing the not-good-enough feature update weaknesses?
Where is the security only pack? I don’t want or need any of Microsoft useless new features. I just want my computer to run like it did in Windows 7. One build and only security updates.
LTSC.
link to download?
By default, Win 10+ users are subject to frequent forced changes to their OS, while being constantly surveilled. If a user wants to keep their system up to date, it’s a constant struggle with reverted settings, buggy drivers and patches, reduced functionality and productivity, new anti-features, spying, and ads.
MS is conditioning users to give up control of their system and switch to Windows 365.
Imagine eating soup, but you decide a spoon is no longer enough, and you start using a straw as well as the spoon to east the same soup.
The classic kid trick of trying to drink soup through two straws stuck up the nose. Usually doesn’t go too well.
What a dumb analogy lmfao.