From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-11
On Thu, 4/30/2026 6:48 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Don Fizzy <zio.fizzyNOSPAM@gmail.com.invalid> wrote:
https://www.hwupgrade.it/news/sistemi-operativi/windows-11-gli-aggiornamenti-ora-pesano-5-gb-colpa-dell-ia-e-dei-pacchetti-cumulativi_153073.html
(In Italian. Had to translate to English.)
I wonder if Copilot is disabled on the endpoint host (home user's
computer) if all the AI crap is eliminated in the downloads. I suspect
all the unwanted code still gets downloaded in the update.
This has been going on for some time. If you go to catalog.update.microsoft.com and look for a Cumulative, they were weighing in at 4GB. When you download them that way, when they arrive on your desktop, during the "initial part of the install",
at least half of the file is thrown away (as some of the referenced packages are already on
disk).
When you do a Cumulative via Windows Update instead (the "normal way"), it works out what
subset of 1000 packages it needs, and then it does a smaller download for you.
So while they are "blaming AI" in that hwupdate.it article, that's not really the whole story. But what is noteworthy, is at some point, the file was maybe 800MB
on the catalog server, and suddenly it was 4GB as if the entire OS was being shipped instead. Finding it has moved from 4GB to 5GB, is just a normal
amount of bloat for such things.
The only reason for any "AI Stuff" to take up space, is it looks like some of these have their own private copy of Webview2 (I removed the sucker doing that this morning,
so I cannot count the number of processes it spouted, even though it wasn't doing
anything and I didn't ask for it).
************ translation to English of hwupgrade.it , then OCR for nice formatting ********************
Windows 11, updates now weigh 5 GB: blame Al and cumulative packages
The integration of Al components and the cumulative nature of Microsoft packages have pushed the size of Windows 11 updates towards 5 GB. A
change of pace that weighs above all on corporate infrastructures and storage management
by Nino Grasso published on 30 April 2026, at 09:41 in channel OPERATING SYSTEMS
In 2024, a standard Windows 11 cumulative update fluctuated between 200 MB and 500 MB, while
packages distributed in 2026 have now broken the 5 GB barrier in the Microsoft Update Catalog.
Once extracted, these files can take up to 9 GB on the local disk, a sign that there is probably
something to review in terms of scalability of the deployment model. This surge is not accidental but
derives from a precise packaging strategy that combines the cumulative nature of updates with a
massive injection of code dedicated to local artificial intelligence.
This novelty does not necessarily represent a big problem for the end user, since the size of the file
in the Catalog almost never corresponds to the data actually downloaded to the home PC. Using the
Unified Update Platform (UUP) architecture and Express update logic, Windows filters out
unnecessary components by analyzing hardware and software configuration, and then
downloading only missing deltas and applicable components. In most real-world scenarios, the
actual download is between 1.5 GB and 2 GB, which is significantly less than the nominal 5 GB but
still double what it was just two years ago.
The explosion of cumulative packages: 5 GB is the new norm
The main driver of this growth is the native integration of technologies related to semantic
search and on-device Al. Within the update's MSIX packages, critical components such as
PSTokenizer, advanced image search functions, and the Onyx runtime have been identified. These
are heavy libraries, needed to run language and computer vision models directly on the user's NPU
or GPU without depending on the cloud. Currently, Microsoft includes these payloads in the main
cumulative package to ensure that every compatible machine is ready to run the new features, even <=== Qualcomm laptop...
if their actual activation remains selective.
If the consumer user is protected by dynamic filtering by UUP, IT administrators experience a very
different reality. In enterprise environments, tools such as Windows Server Update Services
(WSUS) or Configuration Manager must download the entire package to the catalog and then deploy
it internally. The impact on storage infrastructures is brutal (annual storage requirements have gone
from 11 GB per architecture to over 52 GB, explains Windows Latest). This means that a single
architecture (x64 or ARM64) now requires five times as much space as before, forcing companies to
much more aggressive server cleaning cycles to avoid saturation of deployment volumes.
The real bad news for users is that this ecosystem of giant files could cause side effects. A glaring
case was the recent KB5083769 update, which came under the spotlight for problems related to the
Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS). Numerous users have reported failures during
download and installation, with the BITS service stopping responding or timeout, effectively blocking
the receipt of further patches. For the future, the most accredited hypothesis is the separation of Al
modules into optional packages or the adoption of a more efficient checkpoint update
system, capable of periodically eliminating the growth of cumulative updates.
************ END: translation to English of hwupgrade.it , then OCR for nice formatting ********************
Paul
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