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Recast’s Endpoint Management Recap – February 2023

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Welcome to Recast’s Endpoint Management Recap, February 2023 – by Daniel Engberg

It is the shortest month of the year, but there has been no lack of content from either Microsoft or the community.  

This month we’ve had some long-awaited updates. My main excitement is around the public preview release of the deployment service for Intune, allowing for granular control of drivers and firmware. First announced in March 2021, it’s been a long wait and one that many organizations have been waiting for.

Having the ability to have granular control of drivers and firmware makes the transition easier for moving to a cloud-only approach. Updating drivers and firmware should be an improvement to most organizations, as in my experience, few use a driver as a service approach or update their firmware regularly. Traditionally, most organizations have updated their drivers and firmware (BIOS) only during operating system deployment or when a problem occurs.

I’m looking forward to seeing what this feature has in store for us!

We have also received a new Technical Preview (2302) of Configuration Manager this month. 

Microsoft is also continuing to rebrand the Microsoft Endpoint Manager products to Intune. The latest change is the option to use intune.microsoft.com, instead of endpoint.microsoft.com. Both options work but getting used to the “new” naming convention could be a good idea :).

I hope you like this month’s recap and see you again in March!

– Daniel Engberg

Contents – Endpoint Management Recap

events

Upcoming Events

endpoint management recap from Microsoft

We’ve had the following Microsoft product announcements in February of this year.

  • Configuration Manager Technical Preview 2302: After not keeping up with the previous cadence for the past two months, we now have a new version. As with 2301, the product name is now Microsoft Configuration Manager in the console.
  • Public preview availability of the deployment service for drivers and firmware in Intune.
    This is a long-awaited feature, first communicated in March 2021. The release has been delayed due to insufficient customer data. But now we have the public preview of the service ready. Check out the release notes here: Commercial driver and firmware servicing is publicly available! – Microsoft Community Hub

    If you haven’t heard of it before, you will now be able to granularly select which driver and firmware versions you wish to assign to your clients. Previously, the only option was to turn Drivers on or off as a category in Windows Update for Business.

    Currently, the service can only be managed via the Graph API, but Microsoft will make the configuration available in Intune later. First, out of the gates, Johan Arwidmark has created a solution for this. Check it out here: Total Control for Drivers and Firmware – Cloud Edition – Deployment Research.
  • Microsoft has also released a Study guide for Exam MD-102: Endpoint Administrator | Microsoft Learn. Check it out if you are interested in this certification.

Microsoft Azure Active Directory [What’s New Page]

ConfigMgr [What’s New Page] [Tech Community] [Virtual Hub][MS QA][Reddit][Feedback]

Microsoft ConfigMgr Tech Preview

Microsoft Intune [What’s New Page]

Windows [What’s New Page]

Security Alerts and Info [Microsoft Security Portal – Security Update Guide]

endpoint management recap hardware and software updates from vendors

Every month, we cover updates to the tools, scripts, and software provided by the major hardware vendors related to enterprise client management. Check out the ConfigMgr Manufacturers page for a complete list of tools, blog posts, and information about the vendors.

No updates this month.

endpoint management recap community news

Podcasts / Blog Series / Video Blogs‍

Blog Posts

Intune
ConfigMgr
Windows 365
 Other SysAdmin Info
endpoint management recap conclusion

Recast Software has updated their product suite to version 5.0. The 5.0 release overhauls the total software infrastructure across all Recast Software products. Major changes under the hood won’t impact core functionality, but they do offer immediate performance, stability, and usability improvements. Learn more and upgrade here.

In January, Recast Software launched the Recast Academy, a learning platform for Enterprise customers to train on our software’s features. Initial courses focus on Right Click Tools Enterprise and enable users to understand the vital features and functionality of our platform. These features empower IT teams to improve their efficiency within MECM / SCCM. Learn more here or sign up and get started.

Check out a couple new blog posts on the Recast Blog:

Also:

‍Thank you for checking out Recast’s Endpoint Management Recap – February 2023. Stay tuned for more helpful content coming your way in the new year.

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