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posted by takyon on Tuesday August 04 2015, @07:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the embrace-extend-share dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:22PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:22PM (#218082)

    It took less than 5 minutes to search google and turn off delivery optimization. No, I'm not going to post the instructions.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:29PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:29PM (#218091)

    I changed my mind...
    Here’s how:
    Go to Start Start button icon, then Settings > Update & security > Windows Update , and then select Advanced options.
    On the Advanced options page, select Choose how updates are delivered, and then use the toggle to turn Delivery Optimization off. When turned off, you'll still get updates and apps from Windows Update and from the Windows Store.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by MrGuy on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:50PM

    by MrGuy (1007) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:50PM (#218114)

    Wow, you're really good at Google and everyone else in the world is an idiot.

    Oh, wait. Or maybe you missed the point entirely.

    The concern is not so much "is it difficult for someone aware of this behavior to find a way to disable it?" but rather "is this behavior most users would expect?" and "is it reasonable for users to expect Microsoft to at least provide notification that this is how their downloader behaves?"

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @09:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @09:11PM (#218133)

      It's a new/rebuilt operating system, It's going to have some different stuff. Surely the article could have at least posted the link to the microsoft article explaining what is is, and how to turn it off, but no, lets scare everyone instead. I personally don't like Windows, the only reason I have a PC with it is it's a gaming rig. My main use rig is Linux, I use that for everything else until Linux gaming catches up.