Can Windows Update be configured to also update other Microsoft products via Group Policy?

Question

Can Windows Update be configured to also update other Microsoft products via Group Policy?

In other words, how can I check the "Give me updates for other Microsoft products when I update Windows." box via a GPO?

Solution 1

Configure policy Configure Automatic Updates (either local or domain policy) and check the box for "Install updates for other Microsoft products"

Solution 2

I've been looking for a solution to this issue for a while, but it seems even now with Windows 10 Microsoft hasn't made available a GPO setting for automatically enabling Microsoft Update (i.e. checking updates for all installed Microsoft products).

The only solution I've ever found is using a VB script:

Set ServiceManager = CreateObject("Microsoft.Update.ServiceManager")
ServiceManager.ClientApplicationID = "My App"

'add the Microsoft Update Service, GUID
Set NewUpdateService = ServiceManager.AddService2("7971f918-a847-4430-9279-4a52d1efe18d",7,"")

The script can of course be deployed as a machine startup script via GPO.

The same page also mentions setting a Registry key, which can be done via GPO in a number of ways (natively, via reg.exe, using a custom administrative template, etc.).

Comments

[Massimo]

This is completely unrelated to the question. Of course you can use WSUS to deploy updates for all Microsoft products, but client systems still need to be configured to check for them, otherwise they will only check for OS updates.

[Massimo]

Also, WSUS has been an OS role since Windows Server 2008 R2; there is no need to download and install it anymore.

[HEMAN85]

Read the question carefully. They never mention which OS he's using. That's why I suggest to download WSUS because you can use any OS (Win 7 or Win 10) to use as WSUS computer Not only Windows Servers. If you are using a server OS, you need to install WSUS as a role (Windows 2008 or later). Going back to the question, Yes you can set a GPO to deploy Windows Updates on your environment. Also Windows 10 provide a GPO to download Microsoft products updates. With a GPO, all the computers on your domain will be taking the WSUS configuration.

[Dom]

This Group Policy setting is only available with the new .admx from Windows 10 v1607 (Win 10 Anniversary Edition). Before then, the .admx does not include this setting.