Table of Contents
Introduction
When starting an SCCM client upgrade, you must upgrade your SCCM clients.
Before SCCM Current Branch, upgrading SCCM clients was accomplished by deploying a configuration manager client upgrade package to the clients, which were included as part of the upgrade. This is still possible, and I know of many organizations that do this.
The simplest and best way is to use the Automatic Client Upgrade functionality.
This blog post covers updating the sccm client versions automatically using the Automatic Client Upgrade feature in the SCCM hierarchy settings.
When does the SCCM Client upgrade take place?
When you upgrade SCCM, both major and minor, a new client will also be sent out. Previously this was handled using client upgrade packages that were sent out to the clients.
This could be quite tedious, as service packs seemed to be released every week.
Nowadays, this happens automatically, as part of the SCCM upgrade process, using automatic client upgrade in the hierarchy.
What is Automatic Client Upgrade in SCCM?
When enabling the Automatic Client Upgrade, SCCM creates a Scheduled Task for each client machine with a version lower than the Latest Version property.
The Scheduled Task is created with a random run interval, which means that all clients are not updated simultaneously, which could cause performance issues.
Seven days is the default, which is usually sufficient, but change it according to your requirements.
How to force an SCCM client upgrade using Automatic Client Upgrade
Follow the below steps to enable Automatic Client Upgrade in your SCCM hierarchy:
1. Open the Configuration Manager console. Select your Site under Site Configuration and select Hierarchy Settings in the top ribbon.
2. Go to the Automatic Client Upgrade tab
3. Check Upgrade client automatically when new client updates are available and press OK in the window that pop-ups
If you go to the tab Automatic Client Upgrade, you see what version all clients will upgrade to.
Conclusion
I always recommend using the Automatic Client Upgrade feature to force an SCCM client update. It is easy to configure, and I have no negative experience of it.
How do you update clients in your environment?
References
Related posts
- How to configure maintenance windows in SCCM
- How to configure deadlines for automatic deployment rules
- How to create multiple deployments for an ADR in SCCM
- How to configure the collection update schedule in SCCM using Powershell
- How to check for model-specific settings using Configuration Items in SCCM
Hello, thanx for this post but this option can have a negative impact for the network, even if remote sites are connected to one SCCM DP in company headquarters.
I suggest create a collection for what i will deploy sccm client and put machines gradually to this collection.
It is also a good idea to disable it before updating CM. Especially is there are post update hotfixes.