Microsoft has improved the way its Microsoft 365 Apps uppdates are installed, to the point where you won't even notice they were updated anymore.
Julia Lieberman, Product Manager for Office Deployment, shared details via the Microsoft Tech Community about how the Microsoft 365 Apps update process has been optimized recently. Until now, updates couldn't be installed while an app was running or if a PC was locked, but that's no longer the case.
Microsoft is taking advantage of its Click-to-Run technology, which uses virtualization and streaming tech to allow updates to be applied in the background while the software is still being used. It means you can leave apps running and your PC is in a locked state knowing updates will be installed regardless. As Lieberman points out, this is a much nicer solution than "abrupt forced updates" if an update was previously left pending for days.
Under the new update process, Microsoft checks to see if an app is running when your PC is locked or left idle, and if it is the app will briefly be shut down, the update applied, and the app started again in its previous state. Apparently this takes "about four seconds."
The new Click-to-Run update method is available on Windows devices for Microsoft 365 subscriptions, Visio, and Project, but not Microsoft Teams as that has its own update process. Anyone with a retail consumer or perpetual Office 2016, 2019, and 2021 install will also receive their updates using this new method.