Intune Apps vs Intune Updates
This article will detail when to use Intune Apps or Intune Updates and the relevant assignments for each.
Topics covered in this article:
Note: This article is written for Patch My PC Publisher, but the same concepts apply for Patch My PC Cloud as well.
Intune Apps & Intune Updates – What’s The Difference?
When talking about the Intune Apps and Intune Updates tabs in the Patch My PC Publisher there can be some confusion around when to use one or the other, or both.
In short: when you select a product from the Intune Apps tab and deploy it as a Required assignment, the application will be installed if it’s not already installed, or updated if it is already installed. If you deploy a product as a Required assignment from the Intune Updates tab, it will only update existing installations of that application and will not install the application if it’s not already installed.
For this article, let’s use Google Chrome x64 as an example.
Scenario 1 – Required Apps
In this scenario, we want to ensure that all of our devices have Google Chrome x64 installed and always kept updated with the most recent version.
To achieve this, we want to select the Intune App for Google Chrome x64 and set our assignments to Required on All Devices.
With this assignment set, anytime a device checks in it will evaluate the following:
- If Google Chrome x64 isn’t installed, the device will pull down and install Google Chrome x64
- If Google Chrome x64 is installed but out of date, the device will pull down and install the most recent version of Google Chrome x64
Scenario 2 – Available Apps & Required Updates
In this scenario, we want to make Chrome available to our users to install from the Company Portal and it up to date should they decide to install it.
To achieve this, first we want to select the Intune App for Google Chrome and set our Assignments to Available to All Users.
With this assignment set, Google Chrome will appear in the Company Portal for your users to install should they want to.
Once we have this assignment set, we want to select the Intune Update for Google Chrome and set our Assignments to Required on All Devices.
With this assignment set, anytime a device checks in it will evaluate the following:
- If Google Chrome x64 isn’t installed, do nothing
- If Google Chrome x64 is installed and out of date, the device will pull down and install the most recent version of Google Chrome x64
Note: You can find more information on Managing Intune Assignments here: Manage Assignments