By Martin Jansen, Owner of Jansen-PCINFO
It’s incredibly important to keep up with system updates regardless of the operating system today. Malware coders are constantly looking for vulnerabilities in an OS, trying to exploit systems for fun and profit. Windows gets the majority of malware designed for their systems simply because of market share.
Windows Update
I check Windows Update frequently, but in most cases the Windows will update itself in the off hours. It’s a good idea to make sure all apps are closed when you leave the computer on overnight. In Windows 11 the dark theme interface looks like this:
The average user has no idea what updates are being applied to their system. Go to Microsoft’s support site and reference the KB number to get a better idea:
Warning: This update information may put you to sleep!
When Microsoft says “Cumulative” they are not kidding. I counted 48 bullet points of mostly fixes and a few improvements. At the end of the article Microsoft states the update may break some (older) .NET 3.5 apps.
In corporations, where Windows is still king, IT professionals must carefully study which updates are to be applied to systems. Sometimes the wrong update can break apps that are used company wide. Nobody wants that.
It usually takes a long time to download and install Windows updates and when completed a restart is almost always required.
Compare to Linux Mint
On the other hand, Linux Mint updates usually take a few minutes and seldom require a restart. The Update Manager looks like a shield in the lower right panel:
The user is notified of an update when an orange dot appears on the shield:
When I click on the update manager it shows I have an update for Vivaldi. Browser manufacturers are always trying to keep up with the latest threats:
The Changelog sometimes will tell you about the update and the security fixes, but not this time. I click on Install Updates and authentication begins allowing temporary root access to install the update.
The update then downloads and installs the new version of Vivaldi.
The whole process takes less than two minutes, thanks to good download speeds and an SSD drive that reads and writes data quickly. If you are curious about how the install is going, click on the Details arrow, for uh, more details. It presents a command line view of the install in progress.
No reboot is necessary after the install is finished. Kernel upgrades, however, do require a reboot.
After a kernel update, two terminal commands will clean out old kernels and clean the system:
The && appends the commands to be run one after the other.
Linux Mint updates are much more finite and explained, while Windows updates are a mystery until fully researched. Which system would you prefer?