Microsoft has released 3 editions of Windows 10: Home, Professional and Enterprise. On operating systems prior to Windows 10, it was possible for users to disable and control Windows Update. With Windows 10, Microsoft has removed the ability to disable Windows Update. The only options available in Windows 10 Windows Update are Automatic (recommended) and notify to schedule restart. This change impacts some of the ways our monitoring Agent handles patching.
Your Cloud Works Patching and Windows Updates
Windows 10 PCs automatically check for and install any missing updates. There is no option for any user or Your Cloud Works to turn off Windows Updates in Windows 10, as there used to be with earlier versions of Windows. In addition, Microsoft requires that all Windows 10 machines install cumulative updates, with no control over which packages a system receives. What does this mean? Your Cloud Works patching process will continue to report status as expected and Executive Reports will continue to correctly display the patching status of Windows 10 machines; however, Microsoft’s new policies eliminate Your Cloud Works ability to whitelist or blacklist patches, so Windows 10 patches will not be included in our whitelisting process.
As Microsoft has clarified to us over several conversations, it will deliver updates in two separate procedures for its two different types of clients:
Home and Professional versions will have no option to defer updates. All updates will download and install automatically.
Enterprise versions will only have the option to delay updates.
Before being released to all users, Windows updates will be tested by Windows Insiders.
Once Microsoft feels testing has been successful, updates will be released to all users.
We are still evaluating how to best represent Windows 10 machines in Patch Policies and to discuss with Microsoft their plans for Enterprise. We will keep you posted on our progress.
If you have any questions around this please do not hesitate to contact us.
Your Cloud Works Service Team
