New Microsoft Graph APIs give greater control over Windows updates

Microsoft has released a public preview of new APIs for Microsoft Graph that give system administrators, developers and professionals fine-grain control over updates for Windows 10.

The new APIs are powered by the Windows Update for Business deployment service and allow for greater management of update deployment in various environments. Control over the installation of Windows 10 updates is something that administrators and regular users alike have long craved, but it is something that has been made all the more important this year following the release of a seemingly endless string of problematic updates.

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In a post on the Windows IT Pro blog David Mebane, principal program manager at Microsoft, explains that the new APIs can be used by to expedite security updates in enterprise environments in addition to improving overall update management options. They also enable app developers to build update tools that make use of contextual data such as information from a user's calendar to schedule when updates should be installed.

The APIs are available for testing by customers with subscriptions for Windows 10 Enterprise E3 or E5 (included in Microsoft 365 F3, E3, or E5), Windows 10 Education A3 or A5 (included in Microsoft 365 A3 or A5), Windows Virtual Desktop Access E3 or E5, and Microsoft 365 Business Premium.

Mebane highlights some of the new capabilities the APIs give users:

• Approve and schedule specific feature updates to be delivered from Windows Update -- including skipping or not taking feature updates.
• Stage deployments over a period of days or weeks using rich expressions (ex: deploy 20H2 to 500 devices per day, beginning on May 11, 2021)
• Bypass pre-configured Windows Update for Business policies to immediately deploy a security update across your organization.
• Deliver safer update results by leveraging automatic pilots for any deployment.

More information is available in the blog post as well as on the Microsoft Graph Explorer page.

Image credit: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock