With Windows 10 for most people, Updates are delivered automatically. It’s easy to see your Update History in Settings — what was installed. For example, Cumulative Updates, Security Updates for Adobe Flash Player, Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool installs.
But how can you tell if somehow you missed some? Or, perhaps you’re interested in when major Updates were released and what issues were addressed? Well, you can view Microsoft’s “Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 update history” page. Note the different version numbers.
If you’re still using Windows 7, there’s a page for that: “Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 update history.”
For Windows 7, my experience has been that the Windows Update process can be inconsistent, and the reliability vary from PC to PC. Even manually invoking a check for updates sometimes does not work — the “checking for updates” process never completes.