
BitTorrent-Style Updates Revealed in Windows 10 - evo_9
http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-style-updates-revealed-in-leaked-windows-10-150316/
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superobserver
Windows 10 is looking like the Windows 8 that should have been. I'm especially
interested in the OneGet module of PS 5 and package management that they'll be
working on for it. A Linuxified Windows would be pretty interesting.

Why exactly do I see "leaked" in front of Windows 10 so often when one can
download the tech preview relatively easily?

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AdmiralAsshat
I remember repeating the already-common joke around the time of Windows XP to
my middle school Computer Hardware teacher that "Every OTHER Windows release
is good." Vista/Windows 7 appeared to cement that, and Windows 8 / Windows 10
just seems like further proof.

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shitlord
To me, it seems like a marketing strategy on MS's part. They know people
expect good things from even releases and bad things from odd releases. I
think they capitalize on that.

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alatkins
I think you may be attributing to malice what could be better explained by
stupidity :-)

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jewel
The interesting thing about the screenshot is that it says "Local PCs", as in
PCs on the LAN. This would be incredible and I wish everyone would do the same
thing. Especially Steam. Imagine what a problem it is when you want to play a
ten player game of TF2 at the office and nobody has it installed.

Getting updates from local PCs is something much easier to program than the
general case of P2P traffic over the Internet. A simple UDP broadcast packet
can find other peers, and wifi or the LAN will work great for transfer.

A long time ago we had to put an HTTP proxy in for debian updates so that when
we updated all of our virtual machines it wouldn't saturate the T1.

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orionblastar
I agree, it is like when Microsoft made KMS activation servers for companies
that had volume licenses and no Internet connection to Microsoft to activate
systems. Only now it can download Windows 10 updates and then have each
machine on the LAN connect to it to download updates.

Every time I reformat a Windows machine, I have to go through the downloading
updates process to get it back to speed. It would be easier if I had all of
the updates on a local machine I could connect to and download them.

Steam too, every reformat means the games have to be downloaded again unless
you can back them up to a USB drive or something.

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devicenull
> I agree, it is like when Microsoft made KMS activation servers for companies
> that had volume licenses and no Internet connection to Microsoft to activate
> systems. Only now it can download Windows 10 updates and then have each
> machine on the LAN connect to it to download updates.

Microsoft has had WSUS for quite some time now, which lets you get all your
office PCs downloading from one server. IIRC, you can even do offline updating
of your WSUS server (download the updates elsewhere, transfer to WSUS via USB,
install on all your clients via the network)

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higherpurpose
Will those torrents be encrypted too? If they are actual torrents, hopefully
that means ISPs like Comcast won't throttle torrents anymore - or maybe
they'll just get Microsoft to pay extra for the privilege.

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arthurfm
> In 2013, Microsoft bought Pando Networks, a company developing BitTorrent-
> like P2P software that included dedicated servers and smart bandwidth
> throttling. This would feel like a natural fit for Windows patch
> distribution. [1]

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2015/03/window...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2015/03/windows-10-to-support-peer-to-peer-downloading-of-apps-and-
updates/)

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tem5050
I'm quite excited for this! I have a monthly data-cap at my residence and
updates will often reach in to the several hundred megabytes range (sometimes
even reaching 1GB!)

This would allow me to download the updates once and then spread them out,
saving me a bunch of data for other things! Good on you, Microsoft.

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rplnt
Why are these reports always from "leaked" versions? MS publishes new builds
like biweekly through MSDN. Is it only "clikbait"? Because I'm sure the
writers didn't find how updates (or anything) work, rather someone who has
legit access to those builds.

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asyncwords
> _MS publishes new builds like biweekly through MSDN._

While this is supposed to be true, there hasn't been a new public build in
50-something days. Most of the new information is coming from leaked internal
builds.

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Alupis
"leaked"...?

... as-in posted by some Microsoft Employee under direction of Microsoft
Management in a "we don't want to write-up a change doc or support info, nor
answer questions about this build, and/or test the waters for a possibly
controversial feature without officially claiming the build."

"Leaked", in the same sense as anonymous Government Officials "leak" important
news to the press to test waters before the administration officially backs an
issue, or big manufacturers "leak" pictures of new products to the press to
create buzz before they do an unveiling... one would think the world was made
of holes.

Why do we call all these things "leaks" when they so-definitely are not. They
are "clickbait", plain and simple.

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joshuapants
Without evidence to suggest that is the case, it's probably best not to make
wild claims.

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voltagex_
This is going to cost me - uploads are counted as well as downloads on most
plans in Australia.

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freehunter
Did you read past the first sentence? The second one says "in the settings is
the option". The screenshot shows a toggle switch. It won't cost you a dime.

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voltagex_
Sorry, what I should have said was "I'd like to use this, but it'd cost me".
I'd hope Microsoft is also offering to let ISPs cache updates for
faster/cheaper delivery.

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bsder
Basically, this is an admission that Windows Update on a low-bandwidth
connection chokes your bandwidth to a crawl.

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kylelibra
If only iOS updates worked the same way.

edit: over wifi is fine, was more referring to the incredibly slow downloads I
experience the moment and iOS update comes out vs a few days later.

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toomuchtodo
Oh god no. Mobile networks ARE NOT designed to handle torrent type traffic.
You will destroy RF bandwidth at towers, as well as backhauls. The best iOS
update methods are still "push notify update available to client, fetch over
wifi when plugged in and screen locked" and if after a significant amount of
time the download doesn't occur, only then fallback to a cellular download
directly from the CDN, still at night when usage is extremely low.

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cordite
Isn't this why frequency bands that equipped citizens cannot legally forward
information among a mesh network?

Plus, as far as phones uploading to other phones, regardless of package
signing and other security, no one would appreciate unsolicited battery life
depletion.

I remember this discussion coming up with GoTenna [1] here, where they
admitted it would be a nice feature to communicate beyond single point to
point transceivers like a mesh network but the FCC stipulates these open bands
cannot be used like that.

[1]: [http://www.gotenna.com/](http://www.gotenna.com/)

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yusyusyus
no. this is a limitation specific to MURS, from their explaination[0]. MURS
band is cooler for them though because of longer lamdba. but the longer lambda
= further propagation / power (a general rule anyway). so, FCC would rather
not have long propagation (at least that is what it looks like.. don't know
when the rules were put into place, the process, etc to say for sure).

[0][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8054336](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8054336)

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cssmoo
Yet a million feedbacks go unanswered...

I'm getting the "old Microsoft feeling again" i.e. prescriptive features
rather than what the end user wants.

Edit: please back your down votes with some kind of discussion.

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O____________O
_I 'm getting the "old Microsoft feeling again"_

Why? What are some specific examples you see?

Personally, I think they got slapped so hard by Windows 8 that I expect
Windows 10 to be pretty great. They had me at "console window" (though likely
I'll still be using ConEmu).

