Everyone who uses a Windows PC knows the drill by now. You finish your work or gaming for the day and click ‘shut down’ only to be met with a dialogue box asking if you want to update and restart or update and shutdown. So you click and option and get comfy again. You know this is actually going to take a while. Thankfully, those days might be over, if the latest Windows update is any indication.
The start of autumn usually marks the period where Microsoft rolls out the big yearly update for Windows. The latest version of Windows 11 has been designated as 25H2, and was officially announced on the 30th of September. For this iteration, Microsoft has aimed for a compact install that can be rolled out swiftly. This means less tedious waiting around, and also only one restart before everything is ready to go.
As you might expect, the latest update provides a host of security improvements, which does include a feature called “AI-assisted secure coding.” Also included in the update is support for Wi-Fi 7 and addition of ‘Quick Machine Recovery’ to resolve boot problems. One of the more significant changes for most users will be the changes to the Task Manager and File Explorer. The improvements include better performance when extracting archive files, and changes improving the speed that Task Manager can close a process.
It isn’t all good news, mind you, as some bugs have crept in alongside the performance improvements. A few users have noted that they are no longer able to play some Blu-ray, DVD and Digital TV applications if it includes some type of protected content. Affected users may see copyright protection errors, application freezing or black screens. Microsoft says a permanent fix is being worked on.
The update is being gradually rolled out across all regions, but users can manually update to the latest version via Windows Update.
