Microsoft will reduce Windows 10, 11 updates in December for the holidays

Microsoft has announced that the upcoming holiday season might slow down Windows updates.

The company’s December 2024 non-security preview update for Windows 10 and 11, which normally would have arrived on Dec. 17, has been nixed. That means users will only get the standard Patch Tuesday security updates on Dec. 10, and that’s your lot for December in terms of Windows 10 and 11 patches, aside from any emergency updates that might be required.

Here’s Microsoft’s statement:

Because of minimal operations during the Western holidays, there will be no December 2024 non-security preview update. There will be a monthly security update for December 2024. Normal monthly servicing for non-security and security updates will resume in January 2025.

The pause is because Microsoft is expected not to have staff to deal with any potential problems caused by the updates over the holiday season.

The problem, of course, is that these non-security updates – which often bring new features and bug fixes–tend to cause issues, as we’ve seen on quite a few occasions in the past. So, the thinking is that it’s better to pause them entirely over the holidays rather than risk something breaking and not being fixed promptly.

For those who like to live on the bleeding edge, there won’t be any new optional patches to install in December. But for many, that will be a relief, particularly if you’ve had problems with Windows updates.

Of course, there are still a couple of weeks before we get to December, so there are still the November Patch Tuesday updates to deal with and potentially more minor out-of-band patches in the weeks ahead.