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Microsoft will use its customers' upload bandwidth to deliver Windows 10's updates and apps with a peer-to-peer technology resembling BitTorrent, a fact that has caught some by surprise.
Baked into Windows 10 is a new technology Microsoft dubbed "Windows Update Delivery Optimization" (WUDO) that is turned on by default for all editions of Windows 10. However, only some SKUs (stock-keeping units) -- notably Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro -- are set to provide updates and apps to other devices when connected to the public Internet.
Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Education, volume-licensed SKUs for large companies and organizations, also have WUDO enabled, but default to sharing updates and apps only within a local network.
WUDO resembles BitTorrent in its basics, and like that file-sharing technology, uses a peer-to-peer delivery system to spread the load to PCs worldwide rather than relying on a centralized-servers model.
If WUDO is enabled, Microsoft can point others to locally-cached copies of updates and apps on users' Windows 10 devices that are connected to the Internet. When that happens, a user's Windows 10 PC acts as a substitute server for others, and any customer whose device is tapped for WUDO delivery has given Microsoft access to their upload bandwidth.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by skullz on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:16PM
Did anyone freak out this much when Blizzard and other game companies started sending out patches via P2P networks? And I pay for those.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:26PM
The difference here is one is a video game, the other is an OS. Much larger install base than Blizzard games.
(Score: 2) by Lunix Nutcase on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:50PM
So your complaint is that it will have a larger swarm and thus each user will have to upload less? Oh the horrors!
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:58PM
Higher demand. There's a lot of computers that will eat your poor, maltreated upband.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Tuesday August 04 2015, @09:01PM
The amount each user uploads isn't tied to the size of the swarm, but to the ratio of uploaders to downloaders in the swarm. Doubling the size of a swarm, while holding that ratio constant, will have no impact on the amount of data each uploader contributes.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday August 04 2015, @11:50PM
Are you serious? I was merely making a simple comparison. I was not complaining.
Besides, who gave MS the right to use my utility without asking first? I have to opt-out of bandwidth sharing?
I can picture the meeting:
Suit: Gentlemen, Johnson here has a new idea that will save us millions. Johnson ...
Johnson: Gentlemen. I looked at out current expenditures and I noticed that a lot of money is spent on our Windows update datacenter infrastructure. We pay for bandwidth, server maintenance and energy. What if we integrated those services into our next version of Windows allowing us to downsize our infrastructure by outsourcing it, for free might I point out, to our customers!
Suit: you mean to tell me we can utilize our customers bandwidth, energy, and maintenance for free in order to deliver MS content?
Johnson: Exactly! We wont pay them a dime. In fact, marketing is also making them watch ad's to play solitaire and look up the weather and news. In the future we might even be able to push windows store content from users devices.
Suit: Johnson, excellent work! You are certainly Microsoft management material. Keep it up and one day you too can be on the board. Come my boy ... let us partake in some of Ballmer's private coke stash he left as a parting gift as well as the underage prostitutes he had smuggled in from Belize. (Looks at another suit and boasts in laughter "letting the users absorb our costs for free, oh that's rich. Rich I tell you") They then exit the board room laughing and cheering Johnson's plan to fuck over their very own customer base.
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Tuesday August 04 2015, @09:46PM
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2) by skullz on Tuesday August 04 2015, @10:10PM
I... wha... 7!
AFAIK the Bliz downloader makes you a peer on the network. Otherwise you really aren't using P2P, you are tapping into a large redundant network. So VIA as INTO.
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Wednesday August 05 2015, @04:20PM
I probably should have said "IANAG (i am not a gamer)". But on my PC I can be a part of the torrent P2P network as long as I am running a client. So I download a new copy of my favorite Linux distro and I leave the client running long enough to "give back"; but then I close it. So, applying that experience, downloading Blizzard games/updates doesn't mean to me that you are forced into a P2P network 24x7 w/o consent.
So I guess my Q still remains, does Blizzard make you a mandatory part of P2P? Or on an opt-in basis just when downloading/updating? It sounds to me like Win10 makes you a member of a P2P network 24x7 w/o consent. (fwiw I know you can opt-out, but that's a hidden feature you have to ferret out)
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2) by skullz on Wednesday August 05 2015, @05:16PM
Ah, gotcha. The answer is no to both Bliz and M$ forcing you to send data to other computers in the P2P network, you can opt out of either one. But it is enabled by default.