Microsoft releases first Windows 10 update, starts testing fast-paced delivery system

Updates will ship as often as monthly for consumers, while businesses will be able to choose between that and two additional tempos that Gartner has tagged as "near-consumer speed" and "long-term servicing." The former will roll up the "consumer-speed" updates every four to six months to versions that fast-acting enterprises will test and deploy, while the latter will remain feature- and UI-static for as long as two to three years, receiving only security updates.

Other analysts have contended that Microsoft is pushing frequent updates to Windows 10 Technical Preview as much to test the process -- both the back-end Windows Update service and the Windows 10 clients' ability to absorb the changes and smoothly install the updates -- as for the company's stated reasons of gathering feedback and offering users an early look.

"Changes in Windows Update were put in place to make this possible," Wes Miller, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, said in an interview earlier this month. "The biggest question for Microsoft is how the updating process works with the Technical Preview."

In the preview, customers have an update frequently choice of only "Fast" or "Slow."

Build 9860 will be delivered automatically to most PCs running Windows 10 within days, but users can manually initiate the process by going to "PC Settings," choosing "Update and recovery" and then "Preview builds," and finally clicking the "Check Now" button.