WUDO or voodoo : Whats Microsoft upto this time

WUDO stands for  Windows Update Delivery Optimisation.

It has been officially rolled out in the Windows 10 free upgrade. There have been enough hints dropped by Microsoft earlier, but it is a shocker that this has been enabled by default and that it has been done without the user’s consent.

So what is WUDO all about.

Under Settings Option, go to Update and Security and Windows Update. Click the option of Advanced Options as shown below

In advanced options select ‘Choose how updates are delivered’.

Here is what you will see.

What is simply means that whatever updates have been downloaded on your PC will now be send from your PC to other PCs on the internet using your internet connection.

And also that these options have been enabled by default. Which means most of us have no idea that this option was enabled and our internet connection or bandwidth is being used by Microsoft to push updates to other users and computers over the internet.

How does Microsoft do that

Microsoft has realised that when they are pushing updates to each PC on the internet, their BroadBand bills are quite steep. But there is a way out. For a long time we have been sharing files via the peer to peer network one of which is what we popularly know as bittorrent.

A large file is broken down in small pieces and the pieces are exchanged between peer till everyone has a complete copy of the file. So if there are ten peers, using traditional methods, the one peer who is uploading has to send the whole file piece by piece to each peer nine times. But with peer to peer sharing, the peer who is uploading has to just send say 10 different pieces to each peer and let the mutual exchange do the rest.

Now peer to peer technology has been getting a bad name, but silently large corporations are embracing it to save costs. Did you know that Skype also uses a variation of a peer to peer sharing to enhance voice quality.

Not exactly a complete devil.

Lets bring up the settings picture once again. In the first option which is not enabled by default, the updates are only going to be shared between the PCs on the local network.

This means that you will need to only update just one or two PCs on the local Lan with the Windows Update and others will automatically be updated using the WUDO. Now this is phenomenal savings for your company as far as internet or BroadBand bills are concerned. And the same thing will be replicated on a smaller scale in your home network. All the PCs connected through the same connections will share the update files.

For those who still want to help Microsoft.

Microsoft has a few FAQ listed at this URL which is worth reading

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-in/windows-10/windows-update-delivery-optimization-faq

Microsoft assures that if you are on a metered connection then WUDO will not exchange update files. To set up a metered connection, go to network and internet settings, WiFi and Advanced options. Here you can set your WiFi as a metered connection. This facility is available only for WiFi connections.

So WUDO or voodoo……you decide.