Chapter 13
Keeping Your System and Apps Up to Date
IN THIS CHAPTER
Learning how Windows Update works
Figuring out how to update all Microsoft software
Getting familiar with the Windows Insider program
Finding out how to keep all software apps updated
One of the most important things you can do to ensure your computer security is keeping your system and software apps up-to-date. Most Microsoft software does a great job of keeping itself up to date through a mechanism known as Windows Update.
In this chapter, we cover the primary update mechanism on your cloud PC called Windows Update. We walk you through the various options and advanced options and then cover the Windows Insider program. Finally, we discuss how to keep the software on your cloud PC that was developed by someone other than Microsoft up to date.
Learning Your Way around Windows Update
Windows Update is part of the Settings application, and you can use it to keep your Microsoft software up to date.
To open Windows Update, follow these steps:
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Make sure you are working on your cloud PC and then click the Start button.
The Start menu appears.
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Click the Settings app (if it is visible) or type settings in the search box.
The Settings app appears.
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Click Windows Update in the left navigation area of the Settings app. It appears at the very bottom of the list.
The Windows Update page opens, as shown in Figure 13-1.
FIGURE 13-1: The Windows Update area of the Settings app on a cloud PC.
You can open apps on your Windows 365 cloud PC in the same way you open apps on your physical computer running Windows. Just make sure you are working on your cloud PC so that the work you do happens where you expect.
Windows Update provides a status area at the top of the screen, and you can click the blue Check for Updates button to see whether any updates are available. Below the status area you find and the More Options area. In this area, you can configure how Windows Update works with your cloud PC. The options include the ability to pause updates, review update history, configure advanced options, and join the Windows Insider program.
Pausing updates might sound counterintuitive because you really want to make sure your cloud PC is always updated. However, you also don’t want Windows Update hogging your system resources at the most inopportune time. We remember seeing a viral video of a live weather report where Windows stated it was performing updates. Perhaps the weather person should have paused the updates before going live on the air! You can pause updates from anywhere between 1 and 5 weeks. When the time has elapsed, the updates will continue again.
It can also be helpful to view the history of your system and see exactly what updates have been applied and when. When you click the option to view update history, you can see every update installed on the system along with the date it happened and a status of whether it was successful. We rarely look at this information; however, if you need to track down specific functionality regarding an update, you will find the information incredibly useful.
The next two items are for configuring advanced options and joining the Windows Insider program, and we cover them next.
Diving into Advanced Options
The advanced options page provides settings to fine tune the Windows Update process. Here you can configure settings to update all Microsoft software (not just Windows), set update notifications, and set active hours when you are working and might not want to be bothered with updates. In addition, there are options to configure optional updates, optimize how updates are delivered, setup recovery and restart options, and configure policies. Policies are a mechanism that can be set for an entire organization. For example, your organization can set a policy that every computer updates automatically. The Advanced Options screen is shown in Figure 13-2.
Keeping all Microsoft software updated
Windows Update keeps your Microsoft cloud PC operating system up to date by default. But what about the rest of the Microsoft software installed on your system? Windows Update can be configured to update all the Microsoft software on your system. The setting is a toggle switch located in the Advanced Options section of Windows Update. When you enable this option, the Windows Update checks your system to see what Microsoft software you have installed and then provides updates to it directly from Microsoft. The toggle is off by default; you can toggle it on by clicking it.
FIGURE 13-2: The advanced options settings in Windows Update.
We highly recommend using Windows Update to keep all the Microsoft software on your cloud PC system up to date. You can find the option in the Advanced Options section of Windows Update.
On the Advanced Options page, some options appear that aren’t relevant for your cloud PC system. For example, the Keep Me Up to Date option is grayed out because it is not relevant to a cloud PC. Another example: the Download Updates over Metered Connections option — which isn’t grayed-out —isn’t relevant because your cloud PC lives in a Microsoft data center and is always connected to the Internet via an ultra-fast connection.
When Windows Update has downloaded and installed updates it often needs you to reboot your system before the updates take effect. You can toggle an option to receive a notification that will appear on your cloud PC screen when such a reboot is required.
We have all experienced a surprise reboot in the middle of our work. The way to avoid this is to let your cloud PC know when you are usually active on your computer. Your active hours are set to “automatically” by default, which means Windows learns from your behavior and sets the active hours for you automatically. During your ‘active hours’ Windows won’t automatically reboot. You can also override the default and set these active hours manually.
We expect that Microsoft will start to tailor Windows 365 to the cloud-first world. All we must do is look back at Microsoft Office to get a glimpse into the future. Office became Office 365 and then Microsoft began building features specifically for the always on and always connected nature of the Internet. Eventually Office 365 became something barely recognizable as the traditional Office. The product morphed and adapted. Microsoft did this over time and continues to release new features. We cover this topic further in Chapter 1.
Taking a look at additional options
Many of the updates Microsoft sends to your cloud PC through Windows Update are very important and should be installed right away. However, there are also sometimes updates that are optional. Examples of optional updates include features that you might want to try, quality updates that might be helpful, and driver updates to help improve performance of devices. You can view and install optional updates by selecting the option as shown in Figure 13-3. The screen shows how many optional updates are available. In our case we like to keep all updates installed so we have 0 available.
FIGURE 13-3: Viewing and installing optional updates.
The delivery optimization section is one of those areas that is a holdover from Windows on a physical computer. The option allows you to set updates to download from other computers on your network or even other computers on the Internet, too. You can limit the amount of network bandwidth updates take so your network is not overwhelmed, and you can monitor the updates as they happen. In the case of your cloud PC, you get the updates directly from Microsoft data centers and your cloud PC is already on the Microsoft network. So we recommend sticking the default options.
Most everyone has experienced a time when their computer is not behaving, and they need to recover to a working system again. In the old days, if you wanted to start over with your computer, you would need to reinstall the operating system (or perhaps just throw in the towel and go buy a new one). The Recovery screen, shown in Figure 13-4, guides you in troubleshooting your system and if that doesn’t work then in resetting back to a fresh state. If you decide to reset your system, it is like starting over from the beginning with your cloud PC. Be very careful before performing this option because it can have dramatic effects.
Resetting your system back to a brand-new state can have unintended consequences. Before you reset your system, try working through the troubleshooting guides provided in Windows Update.
FIGURE 13-4: Recovery options in Windows Update.
As with many things in Windows, many user interface navigation paths take you to the same task. Microsoft does this to try to make your life easier. For example, clicking the Restart Apps option, which you can see in Figure 13-3, in the Advanced Options section of Windows Update loads a screen in which you can configure sign-in options, as shown in Figure 13-5. Notice in Figure 13-5 that the navigation in the Settings app changed on the left side and it now says you are in the Accounts area. This is because the option in Windows Update was a link to the Accounts area of Settings where you can configure settings that relate to restarting apps. This jumping around can be confusing at first and can make for a maddening experience. On the other hand, when you get used to it, it can make the user interfaces in Windows feel more streamlined and connected. In this case, you can select the toggle to save the state of your apps when you restart your cloud PC and Windows 365 will automatically start the apps for you again when you sign back in.
The Windows 365 user interface often has multiple ways to navigate to the same settings. This can easily turn into a confusing situation. Keep in mind that navigational items are often linked to other areas. For example, if you are in the Advanced options of the Windows Update section in Settings and click Restart Apps, then you are instantly transported to the Accounts area of Settings. When you realize what is going on, then the way things work begins to make sense. Make sure to keep an eye on the navigation to understand where you are in Windows 365 settings.
In the Settings app, you can click the “back” button (hint — it looks like an arrow pointing to the left) in the upper-left screen of the app to go back to the pages of the app you previously visited. This way you don’t have to click through the navigation to try to find your way back to settings you were just looking at.
There are many settings that are controlled in a bulk fashion on your cloud PC. In large organizations many settings are usually controlled by your IT team and administrators. The settings are controlled through policies, and you can view the policies that relate to updates in the Configured Update Policy section. Several policies appear already configured for your cloud PC, as shown in Figure 13-6. Microsoft has configured these policies as part of Windows 365 and their duties in managing your cloud PC.
FIGURE 13-5: Restart apps option in Windows Update takes you to Sign-in options in Accounts.
FIGURE 13-6: Reviewing update policies for the cloud PC.
Understanding the Windows Insider Program
The Windows Update screen includes a section for joining the insider program. The Windows Insider Program gives you access to preview builds and provides a mechanism to share feedback on any new features and updates that are planning to be released. You can see the Windows Insider Program option in Windows Update in Figure 13-1. This option was used for Windows 10 and, at the time of this writing, is not currently available for Windows 365. In the future, we this will be a primary mechanism for Microsoft to gather feedback from Windows 365 users and make improvements and updates. Keep an eye on this area to see if it is available if you are interested in helping shape the future of Windows 365.
Until the insider program is available for Windows 365, you can still help the Microsoft team by turning on diagnostic updates as shown in Figure 13-7. When you turn on diagnostic updates, your cloud PC sends information back to Microsoft on how you are using your system. Microsoft then uses this data to make decisions on how they move the product forward.
FIGURE 13-7: Turning on diagnostic updates to send data back to Microsoft.
You can turn on diagnostic updates to send data back to Microsoft so they can use it to help improve the Windows 365 product. Not everyone is comfortable, or willing, to send data to Microsoft and thus the option is disabled by default. In other words, you must opt into sending your optional data. You will find this option in the Privacy and Security section of the Settings application.
Keeping All Your Software Apps Updated
Software can be updated in many ways. Sometimes a pop-up appears when you open the app; other times, the app updates itself automatically. Keeping software up to date is critically important because updates include security fixes. When someone discovers a problem with software that can be abused, then a bad actor can use it to steal your data. This is often referred to as an exploit or vulnerability. Software companies fix these vulnerabilities and send the fixes to you through updates.
It is important to keep all your software up to date. Problems, such as security exploits and vulnerabilities, are fixed through updates. We catalog all the non-Microsoft software we have installed that is not updated by Windows Update, and we check it frequently to ensure we are always running the latest versions.