Windows Build Version Tracking

Overview

As Microsoft continues to develop new versions of each operating system, it is critical that you're aware of what builds are running in your environment. Axonius is the perfect tool to assist your team with identifying any systems running on an outdated build and their current progress of upgrading systems to the latest release.  

Setting the Stage

In this article we will focus on windows 10 machines for our queries. We'll start by building a scoping query that searches for a preferred OS type of Windows and a Preferred OS Distribution containing 10.

Note: you may want to include a last seen value to exclude stale data (e.g. "Last Seen in the last 90 days.")

We can quickly create a field segmentation chart to show a breakdown of OS type and distribution being returned. This allows us to quickly identify any data irregularities before moving on to the next step.

Creating the Initial Version Breakdown Chart

Now that we have our scope, we can create a field segmentation showing the current versions running across our organization.  

We are now able to see a complete breakdown of our current builds, but it isn't in the pretty version number that Microsoft assigns each build (E.G. version 1909). Sometimes this is perfectly fine for the team that needs to consume the data, but if this going to be looked at by management or teams unfamiliar with the build to OS version associations then the next step can be helpful.

Creating Version-Specific Queries

Starting with our initial scope query we can add the preferred OS build field and the appropriate build number, which can be found here.  

Proceed in doing this for any versions you are interested in reporting on.

Pro tip: If you don't want to create a query for every version, you can create a final query excluding all the others you've created and name it as "Windows 10 | Other versions."

Version-Specific Query Comparison Chart

As you can see, creating focused queries for each version can create a cleaner view that is easier to understand for teams unfamiliar with each build number association.