Most of them include security updates. Security issues are the worst possible errors – as they may be exploited by malware or hackers. These types of situations are regularly identified in various parts of Windows.
Some updates address bugs and various issues found in Windows. Even though they are not responsible for security vulnerabilities, they might impact the stability of your Operating System, or just be annoying.
Windows Updates sometimes come with new features, while patching some known issues. Windows 10 is, according to Microsoft, the last operating system they will make. Rather than releasing new operating systems in the future, they will continue to regularly release Feature Updates making many smaller changes rather than complete operating system changes. If you’re not performing updates, your PC will quickly become out of date, and when you are forced to update, it will take a very long time to process. We have seen this take up to 8 hours, sometimes even longer.
Microsoft’s Windows Defender application, now known as Windows Security, is an antimalware (antivirus) application built into Windows 10. It often runs automatically in the background and protects your PC. If you install a different antivirus, the built-in Windows antivirus disables itself and lets your antivirus of choice work.
Like all security applications, Microsoft’s antivirus needs regular definition updates, so it can identify and catch the latest discovered malware. If you're not updating your PC, you're not receiving these updates and Defender becomes less and less effective.
Microsoft releases a “quality update” to Windows every month on the second Tuesday of each month, which is known as “Patch Tuesday.” These are big updates that contain security fixes as well as other bug fixes. While Microsoft normally waits to release security updates as part of Patch Tuesday’s updates once per month, it sometimes releases “out-of-band” updates. These are called that because they’re released outside of the normal schedule. These are generally released in emergencies—for example, when there’s a zero-day security flaw being exploited in the wild and the problem must be fixed immediately.
Windows 10 tries to perform updates automatically and doesn’t give you anywhere near as much control as Windows 7 did. If you keep putting off the updates, eventually your PC will simply stop everything and begin the update process on its own. This is meant to protect you, but inevitably, it happens at the worst possible time and you are unable to use your PC (or Server!) until this process finishes.
There is no end to the constant threat landscape and the attempts of the bad guys to get into or infect your computers and servers. Performing regular, systematic updates to all your systems, including 3rd party applications (Adobe, Java, etc.) are absolutely critical in todays world. If you or someone in your organization are not tasked with performing these updates routinely, consider partnering with a qualified MSP (Managed Service Provider). They can ensure your systems are always up to date with the latest patches and security fixes. They will also control when your systems are updated, so that this is handled overnight, when most people are asleep.
