Defender for Endpoint on Windows receives New Deployment Tool

• A new deployment tool for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint should help organizations standardize on a single toolchain for endpoint protection deployment.
• It supports both fully automated installs and manual single-system installs.
• This tool and its approach are unlike other deployment tools and will require familiarity and time to realize full benefit.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (DfE) is getting a new deployment tool intended to address many of the complexities and fragile aspects of Microsoft DfE onboarding. This tool—which has no short or formal name—can be used by organizations regardless of which Defender options a customer has licensed for its endpoints and servers, as it supports deployment of any tier of DfE as well as the free Microsoft Defender Antivirus option typically used by smaller organizations. While this tool supports Windows client and Windows Server operating systems back to Windows 8 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, it only supports x64 installations of Windows. Organizations running x86 installations of Windows client operating systems prior to Windows 11 will need to continue using their existing legacy onboarding processes for the lifespan of those systems.