News
Windows 11 Installation Streamlined for New Devices
- By Chris Paoli
- February 07, 2025
Microsoft is introducing new policy changes that will give IT administrators greater control over Windows 11 updates during the initial setup of new devices.
Set to roll out in mid-2025, the policy will allow organizations to determine whether devices receive quality updates during the out-of-box experience (OOBE). This change applies to Windows 11 devices running version 22H2 and later, enabling IT teams to streamline deployment and ensure compliance with organizational update policies.
"You'll be able to configure the setting via Windows Autopilot and Windows Autopilot device preparation, so you can have seamless control over updates in OOBE," wrote Victoria Wang in a Microsoft blog post.
Admins will be able to configure this setting via Windows Autopilotand Windows Autopilot device preparation, allowing for update management during OOBE. Additionally, existing quality update settings -- including deferrals and pause policies -- will sync to devices, ensuring that only the latest approved security update is applied.
For organizations not using Autopilot through Microsoft Intune, quality updates during OOBE can still be disabled via Group Policy. The policy will be available as both a mobile device management (MDM) policy and a Group Policy setting.
Notably, this change does not affect the OOBE Zero Day Package (ZDP) updates, which will continue to function as they do today.
In other news, Microsoft this week quietly deleted instructions on how to install Windows 11 on devices that do not meet the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) version 2.0 hardware requirements. Previously, the company had outlined a workaround to brute force the installation of Windows 11 on the devices that do not meet the hardware barrier.
In a message posted to the Windows 11 instruction page, Microsoft clarified why it deleted the workaround, and suggested that devices that do not meet the TPM 2.0 requirement should not migrate to Windows 11:
This support article was originally published on September 30, 2021, when Windows 11 was first released to the public. At the time of publication and still today, the intention behind this support page is to detail ways of installing Windows 11 on devices that meet system requirements for Windows 11. If you installed Windows 11 on a device not meeting Windows 11 system requirements, Microsoft recommends you roll back to Windows 10 immediately.