Microsoft is launching the public availability of commercial controls for driver and firmware updates in the Windows Update for Business deployment services that gives organizations control over the deployment of drivers from Windows Update to eligible cloud-attached commercial devices.
According to a Microsoft blog, the deployment services allows organizations with E3/E5/A3/A5 or Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses to gain access to the list of recommended drivers curated for an organization’s enrolled devices. This is powered by AI-enabled Windows Update features to pick the right drivers for the right devices.
Admins can also control which drivers are offered to which devices in their managed environment, and when. IT can also instruct Windows Update to pause offering individual drivers.
The deployment service integrates directly into Windows Update and gives admins control over content published there by Microsoft’s hardware ecosystem partners, the company says, adding that it collaborated with its hardware partners to ensure they will publish all drivers to Windows Update.
Microsoft says it has a dedicated pipeline to certify and validate drivers before they are available in Windows Update.
In addition, admins can access deployment status with Windows Update for Business reports to track progress and identify devices that need attention.
In the blog, Microsoft says after first announcing the deployment service for drivers in 2021, that it spurred a conversation about the importance of driver servicing.
“The hardware ecosystem constantly publishes new drivers and fixes to Windows Update that address security incidents and improve hardware operability,” the company says in a Tech Community blog. “We launched a vibrant community of admins, CTOs, and partners from over a thousand organizations globally, all passionate about the goal of ongoing servicing of drivers.”
The company says it learned that admins were expecting the Windows Update service to host the full catalog of drivers for their devices, and that the tool needs to provide advanced capabilities for deploying drivers through currently used management tools.
The company calls the Windows Update for Business deployment service a platform, which is available in Microsoft Graph. Here’s more from the announcement:
Late last year we shared with admins and developers the many ways to try Windows Update for Business with Microsoft Graph and even showcased how a Teams chatbot could be used to help admins deploy Windows 11 in their environment with the deployment service.
Starting today, you can manage driver approvals using the Windows Update for Business deployment service API from any application. Alternatively, you can take advantage of the updated Graph Explorer examples (under “Windows Updates” in the “Sample queries” pane) to enroll, view drivers, and deploy them to devices. We recommend you explore the complete reference documentation of our deployment service Microsoft Graph API.
Our private preview was powered by a web application that integrated with our platform to allow participants to try drivers servicing. This application is now available publicly on the Microsoft Graph organization in GitHub as an example of how to use our API and as a tool to embark on your servicing adventure today. Remember that Windows Update for Business reports is a valuable reporting solution to track the progress of driver deployments taken via Microsoft Graph and the web application.
Read the Tech Community blog to learn more.
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