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Windows IT Pro Blog
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Roll out updates faster with the Update Baseline for Windows 10

TJ_Devine's avatar
TJ_Devine
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Jun 16, 2020

Earlier this year, we released an in-depth guide to Windows 10 update adoption, providing you with best practices and tips on how to more effectively manage updates. The guide included recommended strategies and tactics as well as detailed discussions on tradeoffs and tools to help you make the best decision for your organization. We’ve received great feedback on the guide so far and I'm glad to hear that these recommendations and discussions were useful to many of you.

Today we published the Update Baseline for Windows 10, a toolset that builds on our in-depth guide to further simplify the process. Like the Windows security baselines, the Update Baseline for Windows 10 includes recommended configuration settings plus guidance on customizing those settings to meet your organization’s unique needs. And, like the Windows security baselines, you can get to an optimized approach that’s right for you with just a few clicks.

Today there are over 3,000 Group Policy settings for Windows 10. Although Microsoft provides extensive guidance on different security features, exploring each one can take a long time. You would have to determine the impact of each setting on your own and then determine the appropriate value for each setting. The Update Baseline for Windows 10 includes recommended policy settings across a number of areas, including:

  • Configuring deadlines
  • Restart behavior
  • Accounting for low activity devices
  • Delivery optimization
  • Power policies

In creating this toolset, we've focused on collecting real-world best practices to share with you—practices that can help you and your organization increase update velocity while keeping your devices protected and productive. It's now easier than ever to simplify the way you roll out updates across your organization. Download the Update Baseline for Windows 10 today and start evaluating the proposed baselines. We hope you find this new resource helpful and look forward to any feedback you'd like to leave in the comments section below.

Published Jun 16, 2020
Version 1.0

24 Comments

  • Brandon Robert's avatar
    Brandon Robert
    Copper Contributor

    TJ_Devine 

    I'm struggling to figure out how to defer Feature Updates for longer than 365 days.  If versions of Windows 10 are supported for 18/30 months, shouldn't we be able to defer for that amount of time?

  • MasterMysterious Delivery optimization is a technology built into Windows 10 that helps with the bandwidth issue.  Your home PCs should have downloaded the updates once and then shared it among themselves.  You can see if this is working by launching Settings >> Updates >> Delivery Optimization (in the left side menu) >> (scroll down) >> Activity Monitor.

    My PC is the only 2004 machine on my home LAN, so it's not a good example, but here is what it looks like.

     

     
     
  • TJ_Devine 

    Whoever has created this wasted their time. This document contains the same old things that Microsoft has been parroting for the last ten years, plus some stuff that Microsoft has been parroting in the last five years. They are inapplicable, now that we don't use the workplace computers anymore.

     

    In the meantime, COVID-19 and Microsoft seem to have entered a partnership and put up a joint effort to drive us insane. These days, were are running 12 computers at my place of residence! Installing Windows updates on them is very costly, considering to the consumer-grade Internet bandwidth that I can afford to buy. If KB4557957 is to be downloaded 12 times, it is 204MB×12=2448MB. This nothing for the enterprise-grade Internet. In the workplace, we consumed double this number daily, but at home, I cannot in good conscience call it cheap. If only I could schedule the downloading (not installing) to take place at certain ISP-designated hours, my costs would have been zero.

     

    In the past, I configured all computers to delay automatic updating for a week. I received update notification via email. Then I downloaded those updates manually once and installed 12 times. Enter Windows 10 version 20H1: This ability has been silently removed. Do you know how frustrating it is?

  • Hi TJ_Devine 

    This would be great if it also included a script or other on applying this setting to an Intune policy for managing remote devices as well.

     

    Are there plans to release an intune version?

     

    Cheers