Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Windows 11 fixes the dreaded update process in one very important way

Dua Rashid
By

Windows 11 is bringing an important feature involving the update process that a lot of people have been waiting on. You will now be able to see how long an operating system update will take with the help of the estimated time on the screen showing how long it’ll take for the system to restart.

Apart from attempting to make the updates smaller, more meaningful, and less frequent, Windows 11 will also now show the estimated time it will take for a Windows update. This will be in the form of a little icon shown in various places, including the Windows Update screen, the taskbar, and the power button.

An icon showing how long a Windows 11 update will take.
Image courtesy of ghacks

Putting the new Windows 11 update feature to test, Ghacks reported that their system said it would take five minutes to update. However, it actually took about 1 minute and 10 seconds, which is very impressive. It’s smart of Microsoft to show more time than it’ll take for it to update instead of going over the given time and bothering its users.

Recommended Videos

Windows 10 has long been criticized for its updates. Users have complained about their frequency; lack of quality, forcing, pushing, and breaking programs; and not knowing how long they’re going to take. Updates have always been one of the most dreaded features of Windows 10.

The good news is that this is going to change. During the Windows 11 launch, it was announced that Windows updates are going to bring multiple new features. It will now be shifting to the once-a-year update cycle, just like Apple does with its MacOS updates. The hope is that Microsoft will also resolve the performance and stability issues that its updates were often plagued by. There’s also hope that the updates will be more fulfilling, breaking the long streak of pretty average ones. Another piece of good news is that, according to Microsoft, updates on Windows 11 will be 40% smaller, which means they’ll hopefully take less time to download and install.

We’ll have to wait and see how the update process plays out in the final version of Windows 11. But for now, it’s great to see that Microsoft listened to the feedback and took action. We hope that this small but necessary feature can make Windows updates much more convenient.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Dua Rashid
Dua Rashid
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Dua is a media studies graduate student at The New School. She has been hooked on technology since she was a kid and used to…
Windows 11 is ditching this almost 20-year-old classic feature
The new snipping tool in Windows 11.

People don't like change, especially when it comes to Windows. As if centering the taskbar in Windows 11 wasn't enough, Microsoft is now going to alter a Windows keyboard shortcut that's been around forever. We're talking about Print Screen, commonly written as PrtSc on keycaps, which currently takes a full-screen screenshot of the screen and saves it to your clipboard. Of course, it can also be used in combination with various keys for other screenshotting shortcuts.

But in recent years, Microsoft has been pushing its separate app, Snipping Tool, which was a modern replacement for Snip & Sketch. Compared to using Print Screen, though, Snipping Tool is a more effective and full-featured way of capturing, saving, and editing screenshots. There's no need to paste your screenshot into Paint just to save it. It can also record video of your screen.

Read more
Windows 11 to borrow one of the Mac’s biggest conveniences
windows 11 taskbar third party app pinning

The Windows 11 taskbar already shares a lot in common with the Mac dock, but a new development shows that Microsoft may be taking inspiration from another beloved feature: Force Quit.

The ability to Force Quit directly from the dock can come in handy when things freeze up, and according to the latest Windows 11 build in the Dev Channel (Build 23430), you'll be able right click on an application in your Taskbar and click End Task to kill it immediately.

Read more
Your Windows 11 screenshots may not be as private as you thought
Person sitting and using an HP computer with Windows 11.

When you capture a screenshot and crop out sensitive information, it's still possible to recover a portion of the image that was supposedly removed in some circumstances.

This isn't the first time redacted documents have turned out to have left hidden data intact and readable with the right tools and knowledge. A recent bug in Google's Markup tool for the Pixel phone, humorously dubbed the "Acropalypse," shows this issue might be surprisingly common.

Read more