Rejoice! No longer will you have to justify that peer-to-peer file activity (P2P) on your account by talking about all those Linux ISOs you’ve been downloading. Microsoft, it seems, is keen to use P2P to deliver updates for its forthcoming Windows 10 release.
The traditional way that most of us got Windows updates was via the not-terribly-inventively-named Windows Update service, but it appears that Microsoft is shifting towards a more P2P-centric world. The latest leaked build of Windows 10 includes the options to enable “updates from more than one place” in order to access them more rapidly, which could point to a P2P style delivery method for future updates.
Then again, this is a leaked build from a pre-release version of the operating system, and not every feature in pre-release software makes it into the final version. We’ll have to wait and see until Windows 10 releases later this year.
Microsoft is hardly the first big company to use P2P for file distribution in a legitimate manner, although you’d want to hope that it has built in some very robust file checking before applying updates. Getting a malware-laden Windows Update from a dodgy source would be an absolute nightmare for both the compromised end-user and Microsoft itself.
Microsoft to deliver Windows 10 updates using peer-to-peer technology [The Verge]
Comments
6 responses to “Windows 10 Updates To Be Delivered Via P2P”
That would be awesome for people who repair computers on the side if it works over LAN.
Windows update downloads already max out my peasant Australian ADSL and are delivered automatically and timely manner via the scheduler. No complaints here. I’ll stick to the standard downloading rather than have my bandwidth chocked on p2p
Surely a simple hash check would save you from malware updates.
The BitTorrent protocol has bad data detection built in, data taint is only really feasible in very small swarms. Something tells me Microsoft updates aren’t going to be on the ‘small’ side as far as number of peers goes.
True. Add in hash checks of the final file and possibly some sort of certificate checks as well, no problems.
Correct, and given windows updates are already signed they might not have to change the security model much. (if your computer is happy to install a dodgy update, you have bigger issues than malicious P2P peers).
I’m interested to see whether any of it trickles over into windows server and WSUS. Instead of maintaining a central repository, the server could just give you a list of approved updates and say ‘grab them from any computer in the domain’.