Windows 10 updates

[Chris Dietz]

Just a question, can Smart Deploy push Windows 10 feature updates and or security updates?

[Aaron@Shared]

Chris, that is a no. I haven't seen this feature and we have been using SD for over a year.

[SmartDeploySupport]

Hi Chris,

Aaron is correct - Windows Update management is not a feature of the product at this time. Note that you can use SmartDeploy to deploy a new image built from a VM using media with the latest version, and enable user data migration in your answer file. So if you want to reimage your endpoints with the latest version with minimal disruption, that is an option.

I should mention - I understand that Windows 10 Version 1909 has started to become available on MSDN this week. We will begin testing with it as soon as we're able to get our hands on OS media for it, but please note that as of this writing, we can't confirm whether it is supported yet.

If anyone else is reading this message later on, you can always check our Release Notes to see the list of currently supported operating systems.

Glenn
SmartDeploy Support

[Chris Dietz]

Thanks Glenn!

[Brad801]

Guys,

The SmartDeploy website markets the product like so:

WINDOWS UPDATES
- "Update Windows from on-prem network or cloud using wired or wireless"
- "By separating the driver layer and application layer from the OS layer, IT can push a new Windows version instead of time consuming in-place upgrades or patch management processes..."
- Fancy graphic showing user data, apps, and drivers staying in place with OS Layer 1809 being replaced by 1903.

To me, it seems pretty clear that SmartDeploy is advertising the ability to deploy feature updates via OS Layer replacement.  Is the website wrong or is SmartDeploy support wrong?  Are there instructions somewhere showing how to replace just the OS Layer of a PC to do the task shown by the fancy graphic?

[SmartDeploySupport]

Hi Brad801 –

 

We appreciate your interest in SmartDeploy and for taking the time to provide thoughtful feedback. From the copy presented and graphic, I can see why there would be some confusion. We’ll take a look at making copy edits so that it is more clear, we certainly don’t want to deceive or mislead our customers.

 

The graphic and copy are attempting to represent that SmartDeploy gives you efficient ways of managing each of these content layers. The idea is to get customers thinking that you don’t have to have monolithic, hardware-dependent images. You can decouple workflows for managing these different layers and that is really the point. SmartDeploy allows you to:

• Migrate user data and settings from one machine to another. User data and settings can also be retained when re-imaging the same device.
• Push discrete applications, updates, and execute scripting commands to devices after imaging them. You can include apps in your images too, most customers do. You can also script the application install process as part of an imaging process as well.
• We use a VM to create your golden image. When we capture that VM, we make a WIM of it and sanitize it so the WIM is free of anything other than software information (OS, patch level, and applications). Works with any version of Windows from 7 to any flavor of 10. The graphic is meant to show this flexibility.
• Hardware information is managed with Platform Packs, bespoke, curated driver packages that have all the hardware-specific drivers and information. You download these from our product and allows your image, apps, and data to be applied to whatever hardware you like.

 

I hope this helps, if we can be of any further assistance to you at this time, please call 888-7DEPLOY or email sales@smartdeploy.com or support@smartdeploy.com.

 

Best regards,

-Spencer