A few months ago we learned that Microsoft is working on a solution that will allow IT managers to define the speed at which Windows updates are delivered in the organization. Today, this application leveraging Windows Update for Business (WUfB) and Microsoft Intune is generally available.

There are two distinct new capabilities now available in Intune. The first is feature update configuration, which, as the name suggests, allows IT administrators to create policies that control which Windows feature update will be delivered to devices. Until IT administrators assign a newer version of Windows in this section, devices will remain at the version they set in their policies.

Some other useful settings you can configure are whether you want the update to be available immediately, on a set date, or through a phased rollout. The final option also allows you to choose when the first and last group will receive the update and the gap in days between them.

The second capability that affects general availability is accelerated quality updates. This is very useful in the context of immediate deployment of updates to fix zero-day patch vulnerabilities. There are a few settings you need to pay attention to here. One lets you choose the minimum OS version that all devices should be on, while the other lets you decide how long a device can delay the update before enforcing a restart. Available options include 0, 1, and 2 days. However, the first option should be used with caution as it only gives users 15 minutes notice after downloading the update before forcefully installing it via restart.

Finally, you can also view reports for the delivery of both feature updates and accelerated quality updates. These are available under Reports > Windows Updates Part of the Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center. They will display alerts, device-level information, and overall results. If you are unsure about the policy to configure for update deployments, Check out Microsoft’s best practices here.