Microsoft announced plans last week to make a feature called Autopatch as part of Windows Enterprise E3 in July 2022.
“This service will automatically keep Windows and Office software up to date on enrolled devices at no additional cost,” mentioned Lior Bela, senior product marketing manager at Microsoft, in a post last week. “The second Tuesday of every month will be ‘just another Tuesday’.”
Windows Autopatch is designed to work with all supported versions of Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows 365 for business. However, Windows Server and Windows 365 Enterprise operating system are not supported.
The tech giant said the feature aims to address the complexity associated with software updates in enterprise computing environments as well as address security gaps introduced due to failure to apply patches in a timely manner. , thus opening the door to new potential threats.
The managed service works by applying updates across four deployment rings, starting with a small set of “test” devices in a corporate network, moving to the “first” 1% of devices, then “ fast” and “wide”. rings, which contain the rest of the machines with a 9% to 90% split between them.
“Updates are applied to a small initial set of devices, evaluated, and then graduated to larger and larger sets, with an evaluation period at each progression,” Microsoft mentioned. “The result is to ensure registered devices are always up to date and disruption to business operations is minimized.”
“If a problem is encountered, the Autopatch service may be suspended by the customer or the service itself. Where appropriate, a rollback will be applied or made available,” the company pointed out.