Windows Autopatch Won’t Help with Whenever Updates

⚠ Please see: Windows Autopatch Reaches Maturity for an important update about the utility of this service for keeping Microsoft software up to date on Windows devices.

• Windows Autopatch, a Microsoft-hosted service, could help organizations keep Windows Enterprise clients and Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise up to date.
• It is intended to reduce the gap between release and broad deployment of Quality updates but depends on Microsoft’s discipline in keeping Quality and Feature updates distinct.
• The service could encourage use of best practices but still requires planning, configuration, and management of patching and updates.

Organizations with devices licensed for a supported version of Windows 10 or 11 Enterprise edition E3 or greater may benefit from using Intune and Windows Autopatch, a new Microsoft-hosted service, to keep the client OS and Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise up to date. Although promoted to turn Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday into “just another Tuesday,” the service still relies on the infrastructure from Windows Update for Business (WUfB), which uses policy settings on the device to manage updates from Windows Update channels. Autopatch also depends heavily on a disciplined approach from Microsoft in terms of update contents and definition.