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Windows IT Pro Blog
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What’s new in Windows Autopatch: November 2022

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Lior_Bela
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Nov 07, 2022

What's new this month? We're recapping recent events, launching an episode of our video series Behind the ccreens with Windows Autopatch" about device registration (and more), and highlighting updates to the service, including the new tenant management blade, regional data centers, Azure Virtual Desktops support, and expanded SKU availability.

Recap: Microsoft Ignite and Technical Takeoff

We're grateful to everyone who participated in Microsoft Ignite and Technical Takeoff events: thanks to your feedback and enthusiasm for the service, the Windows Autopatch team is on a roll.

Autopatch was a big story at Microsoft Ignite this year! Satya Nadella's keynote, the session Windows: Building what matters most for your business, and the breakout Secure your workforce with Windows + Intune all highlighted the ways in which Autopatch helps improve security and productivity.

Our "Ask Microsoft Anything" session at Microsoft Technical Takeoff was full of great questions and answers – catch up on everything we covered in this recording.

If you missed our Microsoft Ignite sessions, don't worry – we created a special episode of Behind the screens with Windows Autopatch to help you find all the news about Autopatch in one place.

New episode: Behind the screens with Windows Autopatch

We're also pleased to announce a new episode that takes a deep dive into the device registration flow is now live:

Our "Behind the screens" series will continue to introduce you to our product team and provide insights into how the service works – and if there are any topics that interest you, be sure to let us know about them, or any other questions you have about Autopatch on our Tech Community.

New resource: click-through demos

We're also launching our interactive demos for IT admins who want to get a detailed look at the service before adding a single device. Visit aka.ms/AutopatchDemo to experience tenant enrollment, device management, release management and support, and reporting.

Screenshot from the interactive demo series that can guide you through common Autopatch tasks

New feature: Tenant management blade

You'll notice a new selection available in the Windows Autopatch Tenant Administration area of Intune: Tenant management.

Screenshot of where to find tenant management in the Endpoint Manager admin center

This new feature will centralize any actions customers may be required to take at the tenant level. For those who enrolled in Windows Autopatch before July 11, 2022, the blade will display an action 'Tenant access' that will remove the conditional access policy, service accounts, and groups that were required before Autopatch went to an "app-only" authorization model. (There's more on that in the new "Behind The Screens" episode, and you can read about the specific changes for those early adopters here: What's New in Windows Autopatch - New Feature: Tenant Management Blade)

Important announcements regarding Tenant management actions will also be displayed as a banner on the Device Management > Windows Autopatch > Devices blade.

New feature: global data storage

By mid-November, the Autopatch data of customers located in the European Union (EU) will be stored in an EU data center. Plans to regionalize more data are in the works, so subscribe to this newsletter if this is a topic of interest, and for more information regarding Windows Autopatch data storage, check out Windows Autopatch data process and storage

Editor’s note: This section was updated after publishing to correct the availability date for EU data storage.

New feature – Azure Virtual Desktop support

The versatility and power of Azure Virtual Desktop make them a favorite of IT pros – and, as of next month, the ability to update Azure Virtual Desktops with Autopatch will be generally available. Adding Azure Virtual Desktops to Autopatch is as simple as nesting your devices' Azure AD group into the Windows Autopatch device registration group.

New update: SKU list

The list of products that include Windows Autopatch will be expanded in Mid-November to include additional Windows E3/5 SKUs. The complete list of qualifying licenses for the Windows Autopatch product can be found here, Windows Autopatch prerequisites. Whether or when Autopatch may be available to Education (A), Frontline worker (F), or Government SKUs is still under consideration.

That's what's new for November. Look for the next installment of "What's new" to drop in January, when we'll have some exciting new capabilities to announce.

Until then, continue the conversation and send your feedback by participating in the Autopatch Tech Community.

Stay informed. For the latest updates on new releases, tools, and resources, stay tuned to this blog and follow us @MSWindowsITPro on Twitter.

For more frequent updates, please make sure to connect with me on LinkedIn and @Bela Lior on Twitter.

 

Updated Nov 08, 2022
Version 3.0

5 Comments

  • townendk's avatar
    townendk
    Copper Contributor

    Andrew_Allston did you have any joy changing these feature updates to a newer version? We've had issues on other tenants before where changes have been automatically undone by Autopatch, but there doesn't seem to be any clear guidance here.

  • Never mind, finally found the info (MC470135). Not 100% clear as to why this is happening, they state "...until Windows Autopatch introduces full support for Windows feature updates." This is supposedly a GA feature, not sure how Feature updates aren't fully supported by Autopatch. Since it says "By Default" I assume I can manually adjust this to a more desirable patch level?

     

    From MC470135:

    Summary of changes:

    • The following new groups will appear but will not affect your tenant. These groups will be used once we release our upcoming Business groups feature in 2023
      • Group: Windows Autopatch - Test
      • Group: Windows Autopatch - Ring1
      • Group: Windows Autopatch - Ring2
      • Group: Windows Autopatch - Ring3
      • Group: Windows Autopatch - Last
    • The default target version of Windows feature updates policies has been changed to the https://learn.microsoft.com/windows/release-health/release-information?source=recommendations (Windows 10, version 20H2). This helps prevent unexpected OS upgrades on new devices onboarded into the service until Windows Autopatch introduces full support for Windows feature updates. If a device is on a newer version of Windows, there will be no impact to that device. The following policies will be updated by this change:
      • Modern Workplace DSS Policy Test
      • Modern Workplace DSS Policy First
      • Modern Workplace DSS Policy Fast
      • Modern Workplace DSS Policy Broad
  • Has anyone else had random DSS policies created in the last couple days called "Windows Autopatch - DSS Policy [RING NAME]"? We now have both these new DSS polices and the normal "Modern Workplace DSS Policy [RING NAME]" ones as well. Deployments look like they were also moved to these new Policies, but all the new policies are set to "20H2" whereas the old ones were set to "Windows 10 21H2". Obviously, this is not ideal since 20H2's EOL is in May 2023. :sad: