Microsoft releases public preview of Windows Autopatch

It is only a couple of months since Microsoft first talked about Windows Autopatch, a new service for users of Windows 10 and Windows 11 designed to ensure that software is kept up to date. The company has now released a public preview of the free service.

As well as keeping Windows 10 and Windows 11 updated, Windows Autopatch will also take care of updating firmware, drivers and Microsoft 365 apps. Microsoft says that the launch date for the service is July, so the release of a public preview gives interested users a chance to try it out a few weeks early.

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Windows Autopatch is aimed at enterprises and large organizations. In these environments, keeping updated with the latest security patches is not only incredibly important, it can also be a huge task. The new, free service aims to simplify things, but it is only available to Windows Enterprise E3 and above license holders.

Microsoft explains what to expect from Windows Autopatch:

Windows updates

The General Availability Channel is the source for Windows updates through Windows Autopatch. Polices for quality and feature updates can be set independently to meet your needs.

Admins will be able to see what updates have been applied through the Windows Autopatch message center in Endpoint Manager and will learn about what updates to expect. The familiar cadence of monthly Windows security and quality updates, also referred to as "B" releases, will continue and out-of-band updates will be applied as needed.

Office updates

Windows Autopatch uses the Monthly Enterprise Channel to balance stability and feature availability. These updates are also released on the second Tuesday of the month. Office rollouts follow a unique, fixed schedule-they do not make use of ring-based progressive deployment and are not controlled by Autopatch.

Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Edge updates

The Microsoft Teams client application is synchronized with changes to the Teams online service. As a result, updates to this client occur on a different cadence than general Windows or Office updates. Microsoft Edge also has its own update channel to facilitate frequent revisions to the browser. Windows Autopatch progressive deployment is not used for either Teams or Edge updates, nor do the pause or rollback actions apply to either application. However, support issues for these app can be raised via the Windows Autopatch support request portal.

More information about how to enrol in the Windows Autopatch public preview is available in this video shared by Microsoft:

You can also take a look at the Windows Autopatch FAQ published earlier this year.

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