According to Microsoft, that is. Microsoft recently released Windows 10 upgrade patches for two of its current operating systems, Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.
Launched a few weeks back, the update dubbed KB3035583 is widely referred to as Windows 10 downloader — in that it will notify users to upgrade to the new operating system once it launches later this year for everyone.
However, the company is preparing two additional patches to lay the groundwork.
Both KB2990214 for Windows 7 and KB3044374 for Windows 8.1 are being shipped to users, and according to a company employee, users have no option but to install them. And that is because they bring a few additional improvements to Windows Update.
Meaning, even if certain users are not planning to upgrade to the new OS, they will still be required to deploy these two patches.
In the words of joscon, a Microsoft engineer:
“As you can tell from the KB article titles, these WU clients are used as part of the Windows 10 upgrade scenarios which will go live at release but are still used for down-level operating systems as the ‘regular’ Windows Update client. This update is applicable to your systems even if you’re not planning to migrate to Windows 10, so don’t think you can skip it. It rolls out today as an Important class release.”
Skipping them is not an option, then.
Understandable.
By the way, these two updates are shipping to users that are running either Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or Windows 8.1, as well as their server variants.
source:windows10update
