How important are Windows Updates?

I’m sure you have seen it before. The dreaded “Configuring Windows Updates” text when either starting up or shutting down your PC. Then, being unable to do anything while the PC seemingly sits there doing nothing.
Then, after an indefinite amount of time, you’re finally allowed into your PC, only to find that nothing has changed and you ask yourself, “What was the point of that?”

Windows Updates are vital to the smooth running of your PC. Microsoft is always looking for bugs, security issues, stability issues, and many more things. These updates are the small little patches that fix all of these issues. Not only that, but they are also used to add extra features into Windows, which benefit you in ways you might not even be aware of.

Windows Updates are also used to keep your hardware up to date. All the hardware in your PC has software that does the talking for it to the PC itself. Windows Update helps ensure that, the piece of software doing the talking is always the most recent version.

However, the biggest use for Windows Updates is fixing security vulnerabilities. Every-day, new issues and bugs are found in pieces of software and in Windows itself. As soon as Microsoft gets word of this, they start work on updates to close this vulnerability. Not all updates are for Windows though. Many are for other Microsoft products or even pieces of hardware that may have an issue with their driving software which could be an entry-point for a hacker.

Windows Updates won’t be going away as long as Windows is about. But, next time you get the dreaded “Configuring Windows Updates” screen come up when starting up or shutting down your computer, remember that whatever the computer is doing in the background, know that it’s your computer and your data, that bit safer.