There are a lot of vague announcements and a myriad of conclusions from security experts and the media regarding recent Microsoft news about the upcoming release of Windows 10 and the introduction of Windows Update for Business. What’s actually happening?
Microsoft has been making some much-needed changes to its development teams over the past year. It has announced a new quarterly release schedule that product development teams are being moved to. It is also working to simplify the complexity of supporting updates for their products. The proposed changes will allow development teams to work toward quarterly releases and launch when prepared. The cost of holding onto code, once tested and ready to ship, is very costly.
What do these changes mean for me as a user? Many of the applications you rely on will start to deliver usability and new-feature changes more quickly. Office 365 is a good example of the future of application delivery from Microsoft. New features can be delivered more frequently and users will be able to consume those changes much quicker, bringing this experience in line with what we have come to expect from our mobile devices. The operating system and server solutions, like SQL Server, Team Server, SharePoint Server, etc., will likely be slower to move to these quarterly release schedules and remain for longer periods of time on the Patch Tuesday cadence.
With Windows 10, Microsoft is introducing some changes to the way updates will be delivered to systems. It is also introducing new features into what will now be known as Windows Update for Business. The new features will allow businesses to control the speed at which updates are rolled out to their systems.
One of the most significant changes will be the update rings. There are different tracks that you can opt into that will give you more control over how fast updates are delivered to your systems.
Between announcements earlier this year, and additional announcements at the Ignite 2015 show, there will be three or more rings that you can configure in WUB. A Current Branch and Long Term Service Branch have been confirmed, but, at Ignite, a Ludicrous Branch was also announced, which would push updates at a cadence similar to its namesake.
Windows 10 Home editions will be limited on options to control what updates are applied to their system. The home-user editions of Windows 10 will update fairly quickly. This is the Current Branch. Current Branch receives new features, fixes and security updates as they release to Windows Update. For the majority of Home users, this will be an ideal experience.
Windows 10 Professional editions will have options for Current Branch or Current Branch for Business. The additional CBB allows businesses more flexibility about when the new features, fixes, and security updates are applied to their systems. Companies that use Microsoft¹s free Windows Update for Business (WUB) or Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) will have the ability to defer new feature updates for Windows 10 for a period of time. Microsoft will maintain the current, and a previous branch, that these customers can reside on for a period of time without taking the feature changes. After the next branch is started, the previous branch stops receiving security updates, forcing these companies to move to the new-current or previous branch. Details on how long before companies would be forced to update have not been officially announced.
For those companies on Windows 10 Enterprise, there will be additional options available. These customers will have the ability to mix and match CB and CBB, but will also have access to a Long Term Servicing Branch. This branch allows companies to take only security fixes and defer new features and fixes of a non-security nature.
Enterprise customers will be able to utilise all branches to suit the needs of systems in their environment. The Current Branch is for groups of users that have low risk of being impacted by new features and changes. The Current Branch for Business group may contain users with more specific application needs that may be sensitive to new features, changes and behaviour. The CBB gives IT more time to accommodate those changes and educate users or respond to issues. The Long Term Servicing Branch is ideal for servers and other critical assets which need the security updates, but also need more control over what changes occur on the system.
Want more detail? There is a really good FAQ on the Microsoft Community which included much of the details described above.
So is Patch Tuesday dead? According to a Microsoft spokesperson, “Windows Update for Business can take responsibility for the timely distribution of security updates for customers for free. Customers that choose to distribute updates themselves (or through a Patch Management Vendor) will continue to receive the updates on the 2nd Tuesday of the month.” For consumers, Patch Tuesday is a non-issue as their system will apply updates as they arrive, similar to their mobile device experience. Some of those may come on Patch Tuesday, but others will come as they are released. For Pro and Enterprise customers utilizing WUB, WSUS, or SCCM, security and other updates will still arrive on the second Tuesday of the month, giving them predictability and control over what gets rolled out to their environment.
Chris Goettl is a product manager with Shavlik. Follow him on Twitter @chrisgoettl.
Comments
19 responses to “How Windows 10 Update And The New ‘Patch Tuesday’ Will Work”
I’d love to see them work towards updates without a restart.
They already exist and have since Windows XP.
All updates without a restart.
From my programming experience it’s impossible to update an app while it’s running. If you do, the new code won’t be loaded until the app is restarted. On an operating system level, unfortunately that usually means restarting the whole system. It depends on if the component being updated is currently in use by the OS or other apps. What you’re suggesting is a nice idea, but I don’t think it’s possible.
I was under the impression that linux was able to do this. Is that incorrect?
That’s news to me. Then again, I haven’t used linux for a few years so I wouldn’t know.
You’re right! It is possible!
http://www.zdnet.com/article/no-reboot-patching-comes-to-linux-4-0/
Option to download and install updates or not.
I have always chosen which to download and install, seems a reasonable decision I should be allowed to make.
I’d love to see updates without a FORCED restart. I can delay restarting, but eventually it gives me 15 minutes to save my work. Sometimes it’s when I’m not at my machine, so I return from another job to find that my PC has restarted.
Are you part of a domain? Could be a group policy setting.
Pretty sure you’d be able to mess with it with the local group policy settings, but domain stuff would probably override that.
Both! On my home PC and on my work PC.
For some reason my home PC starts up every morning between 2am and 5am and that’s when it’s most likely to decide to give me a 15 minute warning, when I’m not actually around.
I think the PC starting up has something to do with the energy saving device it’s plugged in to, but I don’t know.
Windows 10 is probably going to be a gigantic mess. Microsoft has rushed themselves (no surprised) and committed to a launch date they can’t possibly hope to meet on such a tight schedule. The software is going to be buggy, unstable, and probably unusable. And of course, It’s 100% guaranteed to slow down your computers. After I JUST managed to fix all my drivers and speed my computer up to brand new levels with free software (special thanks to upgradewindows.info) I just refuse to bank on Microsoft not messing up this Windows 10 release..and frankly my computer runs so smoothly now that I don’t even need to pick up what they are putting down, if you catch my drift.
lol shut up cunt take your copypasta somewhere else
didn’t you already post exactly the same thing?
it isn’t buggy at all, it isn’t unstable, and is VERY usable.
how can you be sure it will slow down computers? mine starts up in SECONDS.
seems like you are supporting upgradewindows.info which is more spam and malware than anything else.
go back to Nigeria
As others have pointed out, this is a copy/paste message from an account with no other posts. This isn’t a genuine comment and probably should be removed.
Will Windows 7 Home keep the option choice?
If so even fewer will upgrade to 10.
No choice over updates and the helpful (nagging), know it all Cortana !
No thanks
I can’t figure out what you’re talking about. What “option choice”?
I assume the option to choose which updates to install, or whether they auto download or auto install.
Mine is currently notify only – I choose when to download and install.
I’m actually quite excited about W10