How to manage feature updates with PDQ Deploy & Inventory

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Brock Bingham|January 27, 2022
feature updates
feature updates

Ask any sysadmin, and they'll tell you that managing Windows feature updates is one of their favorite things to do. Honestly, what's not to like? Obnoxiously large file downloads? Check! Tediously long install times? Check! Crippling anxiety that things could go terribly wrong at any given moment? Triple check! If, for whatever reason, these fringe benefits don't interest you and you just wish deploying feature updates was a little easier, PDQ can help.


The obligatory disclaimer

If you've ever watched any of our weekly live streams, you know that we get asked a lot of questions about our products and IT topics in general. One recurring question that comes up almost weekly is if it's possible to deploy feature updates with PDQ Deploy. The answer to that question has been and continues to be that it's possible, but there's a catch.

The reason we haven't come out and officially supported feature updates in PDQ Deploy is that we are unable to track the status of the deployment accurately. Often, this results in PDQ Deploy returning a successful deployment status when, in fact, the upgrade is still in progress on the client. Because the returned information is unreliable, users need to actively monitor these deployments to ensure they are successful.

It's also important to remember that feature updates make pretty extensive modifications to the operating system, meaning there's a lot that can go wrong. While errors are relatively uncommon, they're not unheard of. Incompatible drivers, damaged files, and insufficient free space on clients can quickly turn your good day into a bad day. To minimize the impact of errors and limit your network bandwidth consumption, it's best to deploy feature updates in small batches.


With that word of caution out of the way, let's look at how to deploy feature updates with PDQ Deploy.

Deploying feature updates with PDQ Deploy

Feature updates actually come in a couple of different varieties these days. There are the traditional feature updates that we all know and love, and then there are enablement packages.

Feature updates are large files that install new OS features and generally take 30 to 90 minutes to install, depending on your hardware. Feature updates introduce significant changes to the operating system. Enablement packages, on the other hand, are small files that turn on features that were previously downloaded as part of a quality update but were left in an inactive state. Using an enablement package is only viable when upgrading to a version of Windows that shares a common core as the existing OS — for example, upgrading from 1903 to 1909 or from 21H1 to 21H2.

Let's look at how to build deployment packages for both enablement packages and full feature updates using PDQ Deploy.

Building an enablement package in PDQ Deploy

For this example, we'll upgrade from Windows 10 21H1 to 21H2.

The first thing we need to do is download the enablement package. Unfortunately, you won't find these files readily available from the update catalog. Instead, here's a Reddit post from Microsoft that provides direct links to the files we need. Once you download the file, save it to your PDQ Deploy repository, and we'll get started.

In PDQ Deploy, click New Package.

Enter a name for your package and click New Step > Install.

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Enter the path to the enablement package file in the Install File field.

Click the dropdown next to MSI Options and change Restart to Always.

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Lastly, click New Step > Sleep. Set Sleep Time to 300 seconds and click Save to finish creating your package.

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While enablement packages don't take nearly as much time to install as feature updates, they still require a reboot and take a few minutes to finish. We've included the sleep step to allow enough time for the installation to complete before PDQ Inventory scans the computer. Depending on your hardware, you may need to extend the sleep step if you notice your upgrades are taking longer than 5 minutes (300 seconds).

Because this deployment makes the target computer restart, this obviously shouldn't be deployed while the computer is in use. If you don't want the computer to restart, you can leave the default MSI/MSU option, which disables restarts. However, the computer won't fully upgrade until the restart happens, so your data in PDQ Inventory won't reflect the OS upgrade until it's restarted and rescanned.

Again, this package is only applicable for systems running the same OS core and architecture as the update. This particular enablement package only works on systems running 2004, 20H2, and 21H1. It's a good idea to use PDQ Inventory to target specific systems running the necessary OS with this package.

New update? No problem.

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Building a feature update package in PDQ Deploy

If using an enablement package isn't an option because you're upgrading from a different core OS, you'll need to do the full feature update. This process isn't much more difficult, but the deployment itself takes much longer.

Before we can create our package, we need to get a copy of the ISO of the OS we're upgrading to. Download the Windows 10 media creation tool and work through the prompts to create an ISO of the OS (Create installation media > Verify OS and architecture > ISO). When the ISO file finishes downloading, right-click on it and click Mount. Select all the files from the mounted ISO, then copy and paste them into a folder in your repository.

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Once we've got the files copied to the repository, we can build our deployment package.

In PDQ Deploy, click New Package.

Give the package a name, click the Options tab, and change the Scanning option to Do Not Scan.

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Click New Step > File Copy.

Select Folder, then enter the path to the feature update folder in your repository.

Enter a target folder to copy the files to. I've used C:\temp\21H2.

Select Overwrite Existing Files, Include Subfolders, and Copy All Files.

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Click New Step > Command.

Enter this command into the command window:

C:\temp\21H2\setup.exe /auto upgrade /migratedrivers all /ShowOOBE none /Compat IgnoreWarning /Telemetry Disable /DynamicUpdate disable
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Click Save to finish creating the package.

This package is now ready to be deployed. It'll first copy over the necessary files, then run the installation command. We disabled the option to scan after deployment because the scan will always fail. The deployment will finish in PDQ Deploy, kicking off the scan; however, the upgrade will still be in progress on the target computer. Once the upgrade is complete, you can manually run a scan against the target computer, which updates its information in PDQ Inventory with the new OS version.

Wrapping up

Because of the nature of these updates, you'll want to actively monitor their deployment. Don't just fire these off and hope for the best. Also, keep your deployment batches small. If an issue occurs, you'll thank yourself that you only deployed to a handful of machines instead of hundreds. Oh, and this is probably obvious, but you'll probably want to deploy feature updates after hours unless you love getting phone calls from angry users whose computers randomly shut off on them.

Brock Bingham candid headshot
Brock Bingham

Born in the '80s and raised by his NES, Brock quickly fell in love with everything tech. With over 15 years of IT experience, Brock now enjoys the life of luxury as a renowned tech blogger and receiver of many Dundie Awards. In his free time, Brock enjoys adventuring with his wife, kids, and dogs, while dreaming of retirement.

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