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About this lesson

Install scheduled and manual updates.

Quick reference

Update Windows 11

Keep Windows 11 up to date by downloading and installing the latest Windows 11 updates. 

When to use

It's important to keep on top of available updates in Windows 11 to ensure your operating system receives the relevant bug fixes, patches, and updates. 

Instructions

About Windows Updates

Microsoft is constantly fixing issues and making improvements to the Windows 11 operating system. These changes are delivered to Windows 11 users as free updates. 

Some updates install automatically, others need to be manually installed and the majority require a PC restart to fully install. Most updates are small changes and security patches. 

Occasionally Microsoft will publish a major update. These are called feature updates. Feature updates do not install automatically as they make big changes to the operating system. For example, Windows 11 was published as an update for Windows 10 users. As this was a large change to the way the operating system works, the update needs to be manually downloaded. 

It is always recommended that we don't install updates in the middle of a major project. 

Automatic Updates

Some updates will be automatically deployed to our PC. This means we don't need to manually install them. Some updates can run in the background so we can continue working, while others require a PC restart. This can be inconvenient if it happens in the middle of the working day. 

Fortunately, we have the ability to schedule when our PC restarts after updates have been installed.

Check and Install Updates

Many updates require manual intervention from the user. We can check to see what updates are available and choose which updates we want to download. 

  • Go to Settings. 
  • Click Windows Update at the top of the screen. 
  • Click Check for Updates. 

Available updates will be listed. Click the Install button to download them. If the update requires a PC restart, we will be prompted to save our work. 

More Update Options

We have numerous other options available for managing Windows updates. 

  • Go to Settings. 
  • Click Windows Update at the top of the screen. 
Pause updates

We can choose to pause all updates for 1 - 5 weeks. This means nothing will install until the selected time period has passed. We might want to do this if we are working on an important project and don't want any changes to be made to the system until the project is finished. 

Update history

We can see a running log of all updates made to our system. This can be useful if our PC is not performing well after an update has been installed. We can see in the history what the last updates were and click on the Learn more button to read the details of the update. 

Advanced options

In Advanced options, we can specify things like if we want to receive a notification when our PC is about to restart and also the hours when our PC should not be restarted. We can also specify if we want to receive updates for other Microsoft products and if we allow updates to download when using a metered connection.

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  • 00:04 Microsoft is constantly fixing issues and improving the Windows 11 operating system.
  • 00:10 And these changes are delivered, to Windows 11 users via free updates.
  • 00:15 Some updates install automatically whilst others,
  • 00:19 require us to manually opt in and install them ourselves and then restart our PC.
  • 00:24 And it's worth noting that most updates you're going to receive to your PC are in
  • 00:29 general, updates to things like security patches.
  • 00:32 But any update that you receive from Microsoft be it an automatic one or
  • 00:37 one that you have to manually install, is always important.
  • 00:40 Ad I would highly recommend that you keep on top of any updates available to
  • 00:45 download to your PC.
  • 00:47 To ensure that your windows 11 operating system functions as efficiently as
  • 00:52 possible.
  • 00:52 Sometimes if you're one of those people who puts off installing security updates.
  • 00:57 Through fear that they might crash your system or do something horrible.
  • 01:01 Then, you might find that your system over time,
  • 01:04 starts to operate less efficiently and slows down.
  • 01:07 So my recommendation is to always install any available updates.
  • 01:12 Now as I mentioned most of the updates you're going to receive are fairly small
  • 01:15 security patches and bug fixes, things like that.
  • 01:18 Occasionally Microsoft will deliver a large update, and
  • 01:21 that's what we call a feature update.
  • 01:23 Now these updates in general don't install automatically,
  • 01:27 because it's such a big change to your system.
  • 01:29 For example the upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 is available as an update.
  • 01:34 And that is a huge change to your system we're completely,
  • 01:37 upgrading our operating system.
  • 01:39 So that is going to be an update that you would need to manually install yourself.
  • 01:44 Now when you are thinking about installing updates
  • 01:47 there are a couple of recommended ways that you do this.
  • 01:50 Some updates as I said are automatic they'll install in the background and
  • 01:54 you won't even notice them.
  • 01:56 Some of them, you might get a pop-up message on
  • 01:59 your PC telling you that Windows needs to run an update.
  • 02:02 And you get to choose if you want to install it now and
  • 02:05 then restart your PC afterwards.
  • 02:07 And I would always say if you're in the middle of a big project or
  • 02:11 you're doing something quite important.
  • 02:13 And Windows prompts you to install an update,
  • 02:16 I would in general leave it until I've finished what I'm doing.
  • 02:20 For example, I do a lot of these training courses.
  • 02:22 And the last thing I want in the middle of a Windows 11 training course is for
  • 02:26 the operating system to completely change.
  • 02:28 Because then I'm not going to have consistency in the course that I'm doing.
  • 02:33 So if an update does come through in the next couple of days I'm probably
  • 02:36 going to leave that until I've completed this course.
  • 02:39 So just be aware of the actual time that you install your updates.
  • 02:43 Now with all of that said let's take a look at where we can go.
  • 02:46 To check if there are any updates waiting to be downloaded to our PC, and
  • 02:50 how we install them.
  • 02:51 Once again we're going to find all of this in our Settings menu.
  • 02:55 And if we take a look over on the left hand side,
  • 02:58 right at the bottom we have a section for Windows Update.
  • 03:01 You can see right at the top it says you're up to date last check today at
  • 03:06 1:45.
  • 03:07 So that's 1:45 in the morning, so
  • 03:09 my system automatically checked to see if there were any updates.
  • 03:13 It definitely wasn't me because I was in bed sleeping.
  • 03:16 But if you want to manually check for updates, you have a Check for
  • 03:20 updates button on the right hand side.
  • 03:23 So if we click this it's going to go away, it's going to look.
  • 03:26 And if it has anything to update in Windows 11 you're going to see that update
  • 03:30 listed underneath.
  • 03:31 Now I'm not sure if mine is going to have any updates waiting to install because it
  • 03:36 did do a check very recently.
  • 03:38 But we'll wait and see what we get.
  • 03:40 And I can actually see that we do have an update and
  • 03:43 this is one of those smaller patch updates.
  • 03:46 Notice that it's automatically started installing so I haven't clicked
  • 03:50 on Install now or anything like that it's just downloading it automatically.
  • 03:55 As I said, if I'd clicked that Check for updates button and
  • 03:58 there was a feature update.
  • 04:00 It wouldn't automatically install, I would have a button just here,
  • 04:04 that says Install now, and I would have to click that in order for it to install.
  • 04:09 Now notice here it requires a restart, so I can choose to restart my PC now.
  • 04:13 And I can see that this update is going to take about 4 minutes to install.
  • 04:19 Now I don't want to restart my PC now because I'm in the middle of doing this,
  • 04:23 so I'm going to click on that Schedule the restart.
  • 04:25 So this is where I can schedule a time to restart my PC to fully install that
  • 04:30 update.
  • 04:30 So I'm going to turn this on and
  • 04:32 it says We'll finish installing updates when it's convenient for you.
  • 04:36 Which is a relief because I don't want to restart my PC now, so
  • 04:40 I'm going to pick a time.
  • 04:41 So let's say, I want this to restart at 2 AM when I definitely
  • 04:46 know I'm not going to be using my PC.
  • 04:49 So let's go through and let's select 2 AM, and
  • 04:53 I can then pick a day so let's just say, tomorrow.
  • 04:57 Now notice something that's going on in the taskbar down here.
  • 05:02 We have a new icon, and if I hover over this icon it says Your device needs to
  • 05:06 restart to install important updates.
  • 05:09 Select this icon for more info.
  • 05:11 So if I click on this icon it's basically just going to take me back to,
  • 05:15 the Windows Update page.
  • 05:17 And I can see here that I have a restart scheduled for 2 AM tomorrow.
  • 05:21 I can also see the update and it says here, Pending restart so
  • 05:25 it's not going to fully install, until my PC has been rebooted.
  • 05:29 So I don't really have to do anything about this right now,
  • 05:32 I can simply close down settings, carry on with my work.
  • 05:35 And those updates will install at the scheduled time.

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