How the new cumulative updates work in 24H2 afaik.

MS have change the way cumulative update worked.

In 23H2, cumulative updates contain all changes from 23H2 RTM.

This is analagous to differential updates in Macrium Reflect.

24H2 is different as you get incemental updates relative to the last "checkpoint cumulative update".

In Reflect incrementals chain in a sequence relative to last one.

This is sort of a hybrid of differential and incremental updates.

In order to install one of these mini incrementals, you have to previously have installed the checkpoint cumulative first.

If you try to install an incremental update without its checkpoint update first, it will install the checkpoint first.

Also you can have several incementals in parallel i.e. they are not daisy chained.

I am not clear if the checkpoint updates contain all changes since RTM or only the changes relative to that update i.e. it cuts out all of the previous binaries that are superseded. I cannot see that as you could not skip checkpoint updates.

So the new system is allegedly quicker if you keep up to date.

However, it is not clear yet what happens if you clear the update checkpoint files after installation. Do the new incrementals need the cumulative update installation files or are they clever enough to work it out from installed file?

Reading MS's documentation, it seems this change was driven by corporate needs.

For the average donestic user, was this change needed.

In the end cumulative updates worked well, and is there any great incentive to fix what ain't broken.

Here's some more details:

I’m only manual downloading once a month via WAU Manager or until I read in here that an update is fine, from here on in. So it doesn’t bother me. I stopped them after my current build.

I check for updates when I start work each morning. I also like to check for updates several times throughout the day as I work. I've always believed in keeping my OS and Defender definitions as up to date as possible.