14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has announced that starting this month, monthly updates for .NET are finally available via Microsoft Update.
Obviously, if your Windows Server devices are configured to automatically receive updates, this means that absolutely no change is required on your side. All updates will be shipped automatically and you have nothing else to do.
Prior to this change, updates for the supported .NET versions were offered via WSUS and the Microsoft Update Catalog, but on the other hand, they weren’t listed as automatic updates.
Microsoft makes the change opt-in, so server admins need to manually enable this feature on their devices. The full instructions on how to do this are available in this announcement.
The opt-in system
Microsoft says it specifically enabled automatic updates for customers who don’t want to use a deployment management tool on their servers.
“From the first time we started shipping updates for modern .NET via Microsoft Update we have continued to refine this delivery channel including the recent addition of updates for the Hosting Bundle,” Microsoft explains.
“The vast majority of customers use servers in a managed environment and deployments are handled using a management tool such as Microsoft Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEP), System Center Config Manager (SCCM) or Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and these customers prefer their servers are not directly patched outside of this management environment so they can exercise control over scheduling potential service downtime, reboots, etc. So when we started offering updates via MU we excluded Automatic Updates (AU).”
Needless to say, server admins who do not want to receive .NET updates automatically on their devices don’t have to do anything, as the new approach is based on an opt-in basis. In other words, unless you manually enable the automatic updates, the same system as before is going to be used going forward.