For those of you who are still running Windows 7 on your PC, Microsoft has just released a “convenience rollup” for the nearly seven-year-old operating system (via ZDNet). While, entirely optional, this new convenience rollup for Windows 7 SP1 will allow users to apply a collection of patches and security fixes that Microsoft has labeled as “recommended” through a straightforward process requiring a single reboot. Microsoft also hopes that this convenience rollup will help organizations deal with the process of regularly updating their Windows 7 machines to keep up with the latest updates. Please find the full technical details below:
This convenience rollup package contains all the security and non-security fixes released since the release of Windows 7 SP1 that are suitable for general distribution, up through April 2016. Install this one update, and then you only need new updates released after April 2016.
And since this update can be injected into Windows 7 SP1 media, it’s fully supported to mount a Windows 7 SP1 image (WIM file), then inject this update into it.
This convenience update is completely optional; it doesn’t have to be installed and won’t even be offered via Windows Update – you can choose whether or not you want to use it.
Furthermore, Microsoft also shared that going forward, non-security updates for Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 will be available as a monthly rollup. The future roll up announcement means that a single update containing all the fixes will roll out to users “to improve the reliability and quality of our updates”. It’s great to see that Microsoft is not forgetting its users on older Windows versions (according to the latest data from NetMarketshare, Windows 7 still claims a massive 47,82 % desktop operating system market share), and if you’re interested, you can download this convenience rollup package at this link.
