Windows 10 October 2020 Update could have one of the fastest installs ever

Windows 10 Start menu redesign
(Image credit: Microsoft)

Windows 10 October 2020 Update will install on your PC in just a few minutes, providing you’re upgrading from the latest version of Windows 10.

The reason why the October 2020 Update can potentially install in pretty much a flash is because it’s simply an enablement package, meaning that the meat of the content for the update is already present in the OS, having been delivered in the previous May 2020 Update (with subsequent cumulative updates).

It’s just sitting there ready to be enabled, and the tiny (80MB) download and process to do this only takes a few short minutes, as Windows Latest observes (at least if you’re running an SSD on a relatively modern PC).

Cumulative caveat

The other caveat here is that you need to have all the cumulative updates for Windows 10 May 2020 Update installed up to and including the August update. If you don’t, you’ll need to download the standard October 2020 Update weighing in at 3GB.

Furthermore, if you aren’t running the May 2020 Update, you’ll need to do a full feature update install with the October 2020 Update, a much longer process. This is just the same as how the November 2019 Update worked last year, relying on the previous upgrade to be installed and using an enablement switch.

Just like the November 2019 Update, the imminent upgrade from Microsoft for October will be a relatively minor affair, although it does make a few more substantive changes than we saw last year, including a new look for the Start menu.

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).