Ok, as i’ve been rolling out CM1702 this weekend, i had to get a shot at the new express files setup for Windows 10. Hopefully, i’ll keep on investigating during the creator update rollout to get more figures out of my lab…

for now, i’d say it still uses the same mechanism as WSUS was using, as i talked about it back then…with Johan.

for example, tonight’s updates were downloaded WITH express files support and are shown below, as you can see in the Update Package repository, you have both the complete upate’s CAB file, it’s about 11Megs…

and at its side, under it s own folder, the express file manifest within the CAB, and the PSF File containing the binaries…adding up to 77 Megs…

thats a BIG jump in storage size… 7 times bigger, as i expected from my previous WSUS experiences…no surprise here, and again Data Dedup on the VHDX storage for those VMs allow us to keep the impact under control…no sweat!

The fact is if you don’t run dedup, please note that you might need to increase your storage needs for updates up to a 7 factor in order to run Express Files.

I still want to measure the actual file transfer between SCCM and the client in both cases, using Express files and Without express files in order to make sure it’s worth the trouble, but once again, my experience tells me it is…we just need to beware of the storage factor.

Best regards, to be continued…

PierrE.