Windows Automatic Repair, a service for automatically updating Windows and Microsoft 365 software in enterprise environments, is now available in public preview.
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This enterprise service was first announced in April, when Microsoft said it would become generally available in July 2022 and would be offered for free to the company's customers with a Windows 10/11 Enterprise E3 or later.
Windows Automatic Repair automatically manages the deployment of Windows 10 and Windows 11 quality and feature updates, drivers, firmware, and Microsoft 365 Apps for business updates.
The main goal behind using this new service is to relieve organizations from the obligation to perform updates themselves. Once set up, the burden of planning the entire update process (sequencing and deployment) is also removed from the hands of organizations' IT teams.
The steps required to enroll in the Windows Automatic Patching public preview include:
- Log in to Endpoint Manager as a Global Administrator and look for the Windows Autopatch blade in the Tenant Management menu. If you don't see "Windows Autopatch," you don't have the correct licenses. See the Windows Autopatch requirements for more information about the requirements, including licensing.
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- Use an InPrivate or incognito browser window to redeem your public preview code.
- Run the readiness assessment, adding the admin contact and devices.
Microsoft also provides detailed instructions on how to add devices to the test ring and how to resolve the “tenant is not ready” or “device is not ready” or “device is not enrolled” status.
Once configured for a tenant, the Windows Autopatch service will automatically divide the organization's devices into four groups, described by Microsoft as testing rings.
The “test ring” contains a minimum number of devices, the “first ring” approximately 1% of all endpoints that need to be kept up to date in an enterprise environment, the “fast ring” approximately 9%, and the “wide ring” the remaining 90% of devices.
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Updates out gradually, starting in the test ring and moving to larger sets of devices after a validation period to monitor device performance and compare to pre-update metrics.
Autopatch also has built-in Pause and Rollback features that prevent updates from being applied to higher test rings or automatically rolled back.
Source: Bleeping Computer
