Types of updates

Here is a quick rundown of the update types you can manage in Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Intune). Feature updates release annually. These are the major update versions 1607 etc. Quality updates are applied monthly. Servicing channels control which release schedule the devices will follow. In practice these can't be used to decrease the cadence of updates. You can only set a subset of devices to get pre-release builds for testing.

• Feature updates: Released annually. adds new features | they are easier to manage
• Quality updates:
  • Includes: security , critical , servicing stack , and driver updates.
  • Usually release 2nd Tues(usually security), or any time.
  • Cumulative, includes all fixes for a specific feature update, includes out-of-band security fixes, and servicing stack updates.
• Servicing stack updates:
  • Required for windows to update itself.
  • Usually included in Monthly quality, but may be out of band .
  • Includes Component Based Servicing (CBS) stack: Needed for DISM, SFC, adding features or roles. CBS is small isn't updated every month.

Servicing channels

• General Availability Channel: Prod channel
• Insider Program: For testing future quality updates
• Long-Term Servicing Channel: Only available with enterprise license.