MAY 2020 • TECH ADVISOR 89patched copy of the OS that will exist entirely separate
from the unpatched OS. You’ll apparently have one
version of Windows 10X running in the foreground,
anotheronedownloadingin thebackground,and
thereboot will simply swap between the two.
App updates will be incremental
You’ll see some improvements in app updates,
too. John Vintzel, the program manager lead for
Microsoft,saidthatoneadvantageofa newMSIX
apppackagingcontainer will be that all of the app’s
resources will be contained within it, each with its
own unique software hash. In fact, there will be
threecontainers:nativecontainersforUWPapps,
whichwillofferthebestperformanceaswellas
batterylife;theMSIXcontainers,whichwilloffer
highcompatibilitywithexisting apps and a robust
installation/uninstallationprocedure;andthenew
Win32container,which we’ll discuss in a bit.
When a new app is downloaded, the hashes of
each of the components will be compared against
the update. If a particular component (say the app
icon) is left unchanged, it won’t be downloaded and
updated, saving bandwidth. But even if a component
is downloaded, it will be divided up into blocks,
and only those blocks that have been changed will
be downloaded. Even better, those blocks can be
downloaded and then merged with the app later on,
taking care of the process in the background.
It sounds like this same approach will be used
to patch the Windows 10X OS, too. The secondary
patched OS will be constructed from just what’s new,