Using temporary enterprise feature control for early testing new features in Windows

This week is all about creating awareness around a recently new feature for controlling the availability of new features in Windows 11. That new feature is temporary enterprise feature control. Temporary enterprise feature control is introduced – together with permanent enterprise feature control – to manage the introduction of new features within the enterprise. With the continuous innovation that was recently introduced by Microsoft, new features are no longer only introduced with the latest feature update. New features are now already introduced with the Latest Cumulative Update (LCU), but are off by default. And new features with impact (like new experiences, new in-box applications, removing existing capabilities, or overriding previously configured settings) are behind that new feature, temporary enterprise feature control. New features behind that …

Read more

Getting started with Windows driver update management

This week is about a very recent introduced feature around updating Windows devices and that feature is driver updates. Driver update management on itself is not that new, as that was introduced a few months ago as a part of the Windows Update for Business deployment service. However, being able to use Microsoft Intune to manage driver updates via that deployment service is definitely something new. That makes it a lot easier to use the driver management functionality. Microsoft Intune introduced a new Driver updates for Windows 10 and later profile that does all the heavy lifting for managing driver updates on Windows devices. This post will start with an introduction about Windows driver update management, followed with the steps for creating and assigning the profiles. …

Read more

Getting familiar with the Windows Update for Business deployment service

This week is a follow-up on last week. Last week the focus was on getting started with the Windows Update for Business deployment service and this week is about getting more familiar with the Windows Update for Business deployment service. Last week the focus was on getting information and this week the focus is on adding information. More specifically, this week is about enrolling devices, creating groups, adding devices to groups, creating feature update deployments and assigning groups to feature update deployments. In other words, this week is about creating custom feature update deployments. For the basics of the Windows Update for Business deployment service have a look at last weeks post, this post will continue on that information. This post will go through the …

Read more

Getting started with the Windows Update for Business deployment service

This week is about the Windows Update for Business deployment service. That subject has been touched recently when discussing the different options for upgrading devices to Windows 11, but that subject never got the attention that it deserves. The deployment service provides control over the approval, scheduling, and safeguarding of updates delivered from Windows Update. And the often still unknown part is that it’s actually actively used already within Microsoft Intune. The Feature updates for Windows 10 and later profile and the Quality updates for Windows 10 and later profile, both rely on that deployment service. This post will start with a quick introduction of the Windows Update for Business deployment service, followed with the basics of the deployment service APIs. Introduction to the Windows …

Read more

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 …

Read more

Controlling Windows 10 feature updates

This week is all about controlling Windows 10 feature updates. A couple of months ago a new policy type was introduced to control Windows 10 feature updates. And even more recent, support for Windows Autopilot devices was added to that policy type. That latest addition was the trigger for this blog post. In this post I’ll start with a short introduction about the different options for controlling Windows 10 feature updates, followed by more details about the Windows 10 feature updates policy. I’ll end this post by looking at the configuration options. Introducing the control options for Windows 10 feature updates Now let’s with an introduction about the options to control Windows 10 feature updates by using Microsoft Intune. I’m deliberately naming it controlling – …

Read more

Easily configuring Windows Update for Business via Windows 10 MDM

This week a blog post about easily configuring Windows Update for Business (WUfB). I call it easily, as I did a post about something similar about a year ago. That time It was required to configure everything with custom OMA-URI settings. Starting with Configuration Manager 1706, an easier configuration option is available for the most important settings, by using the Configuration Manager administration console. For Microsoft Intune standalone this was already available for a while. In this post I’ll walk through the easy configuration options for Microsoft Intune hybrid and standalone and I’ll end this post with the end-user experience. Configuration Now let’s start by walking through the configuration steps for Microsoft Intune hybrid and standalone. However, before doing that it’s good to mention that …

Read more

Managing Windows Update for Business on Windows 10 via OMA-DM

This week another blog post about Windows 10 and OMA-DM. This week I’m going to have a look at managing Windows Update for Business on Windows 10. However, this time I’ll group the currently available policy settings per subject, to easily provide some more background information. Also, by now I assume that I don’t have to go through all the steps to create a Configuration Item or a Configuration Policy anymore. To manage Windows Update for Business, IT organizations can use the Policy configuration service provider (CSP) and to report about Windows Update for Business IT organizations can mainly use the Update CSP. During this blog post I’ll provide more information about Windows Update for Business, the Policy CSP, the Update CSP and the available …

Read more