As we all know, recently Intune has changed many features, well to be accurate added some features and removed some features. One of the features that got removed recently is setting up the servicing channel for Windows Update for Business. To be honest, I liked this feature previously and it was good that everything was at one place and I could select my servicing channel from one place.

Under Update rings for Windows 10 we could see this below feature available:-

But now, from latest update of Intune this feature is gone. It is not properly mentioned and documented under Microsoft that they have removed this. When we reached out to Microsoft regarding this they mentioned that many of the popularly not used features have been removed from this latest version. I was really in shock that really this was not a popular property. 😣

But, we had to accept and move on😏 and find other ways to set it. Well, since we are talking about the ways to move on and other ways to set it, there is one which I feel is good if you want these to be pushed from Intune and not using Group Policies. This is helpful for those who use Standalone Intune to manage there Windows 10/11 devices.

Lets see now how we can still set the Windows Servicing Channels without Group Policies.

Navigate to Devices - Windows - Configuration profiles - Click on Create Profile

From the new blade on the right hand side drop down Platform, Select Windows 10 and later - under Profile Types - select Settings Catalog (preview) - click on Create

Provide proper Name and Description and click Next

Under Configuration Settings - click on Add Settings

A new blade for Settings Picker will open on the right, now either you can search for the Category required or what you can do is just scroll down from the list and select Windows Update for Business(WUfB). When you select WUfB, there will be 62 settings under it. For this blog I am only choosing the one setting that is required but you can go ahead and check all the settings that are required.

So, for setting up the servicing channel, you will see that Branch Readiness Level is the one where you get that option with drop down to choose from. Check the setting from below and once you have selected the required settings close the setting picker.

Under Configuration settings now you can find the Branch Readiness Level drop down options like below:-

Please make a note here which is very important that if you select Semi annual Channel its only applicable till 1903. After 1903 Semi-annual channel and semi-annual targeted has been merged to one and there value is 16. So, choose your options wisely.

After selecting your channel select Next and choose groups to assign deployments too. Use Device groups for this kind of deployment. Click on Next to move on.

Select Scope tags if any and then click next

Review the settings you selected and click on Create

That’s all folks, you have selected the servicing channel with an alternate option and deployed it in your environment. If you have other ways to set it up let me know. Also, lets wait for Microsoft to provide better options with Windows Update for Business.

See you guys next time then with some new blog post.😉😎