Smoothly introducing new feature updates for Windows 11 as optional updates

This week is all about a new method to smoothly introduce a new feature update within the organization. That new method is the ability to create a feature update deployment policy with the option to make the new feature update available as an optional update. By making the latest feature update, or any other feature update that eventually must be deployed, available as an optional update, the user is still in control of actually installing the update. That leaves the IT administrator in control of making the feature update available and the user in control of the installation. Doing that, adds an easy step to smoothly introducing a new feature update in the organization. Besides a smooth process, this also provides an easy start when …

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Understanding Windows Autopatch groups

This week something completely different, but maybe even more intriguing at some level. That something is Windows Autopach groups. Windows Autopatch groups are logical containers, or units, that can group several Azure AD groups and different software update policies, within Windows Autopatch. That’s a really nice addition to Windows Autopatch that is available starting with the latest service update of May 2023. Windows Autopatch groups enable organizations to create different selections of devices with as many as 15 unique deployment rings, custom cadences and content. And a tenant can contain up to 50 Windows Autopatch groups. That enables IT administrator to create nearly any structure for patching their devices within Windows Autopatch. This post will start with some more details for understanding Windows Autopatch groups, …

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Different options for upgrading devices to Windows 11

This week is again all about upgrading devices to Windows 11, by using Microsoft Intune. When discussing the upgrade to Windows 11, the first and foremost thing to mention is that managed devices won’t automatically upgrade to Windows 11. There is always an action required by the IT administrator to make sure that managed devices are allowed to upgrade to Windows 11. The options to configure those managed devices, however, were limited when using Microsoft Intune. That has changed with the latest service release (2111) of Microsoft Intune. That service release introduced a few more options for managing and controlling the upgrade to Windows 11. This post will go through those different methods for upgrading devices to Windows 11, followed the configuration options for those …

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