Updating to 20H2

[BFCIT]

Hi

 

Hoping for some advice, we use Win 10 Edu 1803 currently, we are looking to move to Win 10 20H2 in line with the end-of-life cycle.

 

We have 700+ devices in school which we imaged to Win10 back in 2018 using MDT.

 

I am currently under the impression that we need to re-image all of our devices in order to get each device successfully upgraded to 20H2. Would this be a correct assumption or can we manually do the upgrade on each machine, to save time with the post installation tasks, adding printers, bespoke software etc. I appreciate we would then need to service our existing MDT images and get them upgraded.

 

Thanks

[3s-gtech]

You can do it with WSUS, if so inclined. You can use SCCM, or you can go round each one and upgrade them manually.

 

I did 1703 to 1903 almost entirely with WSUS. Got a batch of laptops that seem to be sticking on the 20H2 upgrade so I’ll just rebuild these.

Edited March 9, 2021 by 3s-gtech

[jthompson]

Feature updates can be done through WSUS but you'll need to find and approve the correct 20H2 feature update for the edition of 1803 that you have in use (i.e. the one that your clients show as 'needing').

 

Test it first though, obvs, as you'll want to check that your existing image still does the job after the feature update and that your policies are all good. Perhaps better for the long run to build a new image, so that you're not having to work through the upgrade each time you reimage a machine.

[caffrey]

I do an update task sequence in MDT, I then have a login that autoruns the litetouch vbs file with a few command line options so all I need to do is log in and leave. The wim is modified before importing into MDT

[DJ-1701]

As long as you haven't used the LTSC (Long-Term Servicing Channel), aka LTSB (Long-Term Service Branch), you should be able to update via Windows Updates or WSUS, or even opening the 20H2 ISO on the machine, running setup and upgrading if you so wish.

[kennysarmy]

Hi

 

Hoping for some advice, we use Win 10 Edu 1803 currently, we are looking to move to Win 10 20H2 in line with the end-of-life cycle.

 

We have 700+ devices in school which we imaged to Win10 back in 2018 using MDT.

 

I am currently under the impression that we need to re-image all of our devices in order to get each device successfully upgraded to 20H2. Would this be a correct assumption or can we manually do the upgrade on each machine, to save time with the post installation tasks, adding printers, bespoke software etc. I appreciate we would then need to service our existing MDT images and get them upgraded.

 

Thanks

 

We also use MDT (with WDS) and when I tried to put the new 20H2 WIM on my server for deployment I just could not get it to work, deployment server is running Server 2019. I'm considering building a new deployment server in the summer, not sure if I can have two on the same network? Presumably.

 

For those who push out 20H2 via WSUS, how do you manage this with school PC's constantly being turned on and off during the day or do you plan these upgrades during holidays?

[jthompson]

For those who push out 20H2 via WSUS, how do you manage this with school PC's constantly being turned on and off during the day or do you plan these upgrades during holidays?

 

Our current WDS image is 1903, which updates to 1909 quickly enough after imaging. I'm not therefore planning to roll 20H2 out across the school via WSUS, since there's no great need to do that, especially with Legacy Edge getting replaced via the upcoming April CU. If I was doing it, however, I'd definitely do it during a holiday when the computers have plenty of space to get a good run at it: I think it would be too disruptive to push it out to student machines during term time.

[3s-gtech]

For those who push out 20H2 via WSUS, how do you manage this with school PC's constantly being turned on and off during the day or do you plan these upgrades during holidays?

Done during a summer holiday, and will probably be the same this year. I'm doing the laptops now though, as they're a right swine to get round.

[2097]

Done during a summer holiday, and will probably be the same this year. I'm doing the laptops now though, as they're a right swine to get round.

 

 

I also only done mine during a holiday and using SCCM .

 

Was a nightmare , had to disable the auto shutdown software dependent on what time i started the install

[BFCIT]

Thank you everybody, armed with this new knowledge, its looking like I will be doing a hybrid approach, in that for the majority of consistent machines we will re-image and take the opportunity to replace PCs or upgrade with SSD's and the more problematic machines with complex bespoke software, install the feature upgrade manually and hope for the best.

 

Appreciate all of your replies.

[EddyAllen]

For anyone interested if you want to upgrade an LTSC Installation to current branch without having to completely re-image the machine you can do so with the .iso and running setup.exe with the /pkey {product key here} switch.

 

setup.exe /pkey {product key here}

[KK20]

We used WSUS, the same way we went from 1709->1909 ->20H2

 

Test a few samples in each room, then do it over a holiday. Dont forget to update your GPO admx!

[DJ-1701]

Dont forget to update your GPO admx!

 

Very good point, especially when moving from 5 revisions ago. I try and do it every time I update the deployment image.

[KK20]

personally I update the ADMX immediately, they are backwards compatible and covers you in case someone takes a laptop home and ends up coming in with an out of sequence update. We dont have the time to update every 6 mons so we tend to skip at least a full year (in terms of updating)

[lafleur1977]

I am currently looking into upgrading windows 10 for the first time since we finished upgrading all PC's to Windows 10 edu 1809 last year. I read the posts above which has been useful to see how others are managing upgrades, and my thoughts were to setup a new WDS/MDT server for 20H2 going forwards but rather than re-imaging I am looking for a way to upgrade our current PC's (certainly the ones with specific software and hardware in offices etc, could re-image IT suites easily). I have selected Windows 10, version 1903 and later on WSUS however it appears the updates will only apply to 1903 PC's and later.

 

Has anyone else been able to upgrade 1809 PC's to 20H2 via WSUS or a similar method?

 

Thanks

 

[lafleur1977]

I do an update task sequence in MDT, I then have a login that autoruns the litetouch vbs file with a few command line options so all I need to do is log in and leave. The wim is modified before importing into MDT

 

Would you mind telling me how you did an update task sequence? I've just posted an update to the main thread as I was looking at updating 1809 PC's to 20H2 via wsus.

 

Thanks

[caffrey]

It's easy enough, when creating the task sequence for the upgrade - use the "Standard Client Upgrade Task Sequence" at the select template stage

[PaulPierce8]

I am currently looking into upgrading windows 10 for the first time since we finished upgrading all PC's to Windows 10 edu 1809 last year. I read the posts above which has been useful to see how others are managing upgrades, and my thoughts were to setup a new WDS/MDT server for 20H2 going forwards but rather than re-imaging I am looking for a way to upgrade our current PC's (certainly the ones with specific software and hardware in offices etc, could re-image IT suites easily). I have selected Windows 10, version 1903 and later on WSUS however it appears the updates will only apply to 1903 PC's and later.

 

Has anyone else been able to upgrade 1809 PC's to 20H2 via WSUS or a similar method?

 

Thanks

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]61445[/ATTACH]

 

Im also in this same situation - anyone know?

[lafleur1977]

I've been looking into caffrey's suggestion of using the upgrade task sequence on MDT. It seems like the perfect option for managing and rolling out upgrades, but I've been really limited on time and haven't managed to get it working yet.

[techy32]

If you are looking to run Windows update ( or even features update) manually then

 

Windows 10 update assistant is your friend

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/windows-10-update-assistant-3550dfb2-a015-7765-12ea-fba2ac36fb3f

 

It will update your pc with a single click to 20H2... We used this recently with SCCM via powershell script and it was amazing... All PCs are upgraded to 20H2 from 1903. I can share the script if it is required by anyone.

[mikeglover]

I've been looking into caffrey's suggestion of using the upgrade task sequence on MDT. It seems like the perfect option for managing and rolling out upgrades, but I've been really limited on time and haven't managed to get it working yet.

 

Just given this a try as before I was using PDQ to do the inplace upgrade. It works well. I'm liking MDT Upgrade Task Sequence better as it gives a visual indication to anyone who tries to use the machine that something is being done to it.

 

If when you are making the Upgrade Task sequence and your OS is not appear in the list, it's most probably that its a WIM. It only works with OS that are imported from the full copy of the iso. As VLSC provide quite regular updates this shouldn't be too much of an issue.

 

In the past because PDQ was doing it silently someone could come along and switch off the machine thinking their saving the planet.

[lafleur1977]

Just given this a try as before I was using PDQ to do the inplace upgrade. It works well. I'm liking MDT Upgrade Task Sequence better as it gives a visual indication to anyone who tries to use the machine that something is being done to it.

 

If when you are making the Upgrade Task sequence and your OS is not appear in the list, it's most probably that its a WIM. It only works with OS that are imported from the full copy of the iso. As VLSC provide quite regular updates this shouldn't be too much of an issue.

 

In the past because PDQ was doing it silently someone could come along and switch off the machine thinking their saving the planet.

 

Thanks for that. I've still not got back to looking at it unfortunately as I've been short staffed for the last 3 months. So far I've imported 20H2 (downloaded from VLSC) and I created the task sequence but I couldn't get the new task sequence to appear on the list when booting into MDT. I was wondering if it was because I hadn't updated Windows ADK & PE on my MDT server - did you update those?

[mikeglover]

Thanks for that. I've still not got back to looking at it unfortunately as I've been short staffed for the last 3 months. So far I've imported 20H2 (downloaded from VLSC) and I created the task sequence but I couldn't get the new task sequence to appear on the list when booting into MDT. I was wondering if it was because I hadn't updated Windows ADK & PE on my MDT server - did you update those?

 

Ah, you run it from within Windows. \\MDT-Sharename\Scripts\LiteTouch.vbs

[lafleur1977]

Ah, you run it from within Windows. \\MDT-Sharename\Scripts\LiteTouch.vbs

 

Ahh that simple! I'll give that a go tomorrow

[lafleur1977]

Ahh that simple! I'll give that a go tomorrow

 

Worked great, thanks for that! I was thinking we'd re-image IT suites but upgrade staff PC's to save re-installing individual bits. How are you dealing with windows.old - leave it or clear it via disk cleanup? We have some 120GB SSD's so they may get low on space after the upgrade but probably wouldn't be too much hassle to run disk cleanup.

 

Thanks