Windows 26H2: Pilot Intune Settings

Microsoft’s 29 September Intune announcement, updated on 6 October, covers Windows 11 version 26H2 settings and the corresponding security baseline. This gives administrators more configuration choices. It also creates an easy route to deploying several unrelated changes together.

Keep the operating system upgrade, configuration settings and baseline revision as separate decisions. A pilot that changes all three at once makes a failed printer, sign-in or business application harder to explain.

Read the setting before copying the baseline

The announcement includes settings newly exposed through Intune as well as settings associated with the Windows release. Catalogue availability alone does not tell you which devices support a setting or what its value should be.

For each proposed change, open the setting’s information and linked configuration service provider documentation. Record the supported editions and builds, whether the setting applies to the device or user, its current value and the intended result. Microsoft explains this relationship between the settings catalogue and Windows configuration providers.

Keep the first change small enough that someone can explain every setting. A new printing control and a new app privacy control have different owners and different failure symptoms. They do not need the same deployment deadline simply because they appeared in the same announcement.

Build the pilot around business tasks

Choose devices by the work they perform. Include the print workflow that matters, the application with a local integration, the laptop regularly used away from the office, and the device whose user has standard permissions.

A useful change record looks like this:

These are suggested test cases, not claims that those features will fail. The point is to expose the dependency before the helpdesk has to discover it during general rollout.

For each task, describe success in ordinary language. “Policy succeeded” is a delivery result. “The user printed the invoice to the correct queue without administrator rights” is an operational result.

Compare baseline versions explicitly

Microsoft’s baseline guidance treats baselines as configurable recommendations. Multiple baselines and configuration profiles can set the same control, so changing the baseline does not remove the need to check policy ownership.

Export or record the current configuration, compare the proposed version, and review each changed value. Keep justified local exceptions visible rather than silently carrying every old exception forward.

The announcement’s October update also makes a specific distinction: the NetBIOS setting discussed there is not included in that baseline release. Do not convert a feature mentioned in release notes into a claim that the tenant already enforces it.

The existing Intune policy conflict map is useful when two profiles already claim the same setting. Resolve that ownership before adding another profile.

Keep the Windows upgrade separate

Use the Windows feature update policy to control the release offered to devices. Use configuration profiles to control supported behaviour. Record both in the pilot, with the actual device build observed during testing.

If an application fails, compare it with a device on the same Windows build without the changed configuration. If appropriate, compare the previous build separately. This gives the investigation one meaningful difference at a time.

Agree the reversal before assigning the policy. Identify the previous value and the method for restoring it. Setting a catalogue item to “Not configured” stops Intune managing it; it should not be treated as a promise to restore the old state.

Decide when the pilot has finished

Give the pilot an owner and a short list of unresolved issues. Expand when the agreed tasks pass, the helpdesk can identify the assigned configuration, and the reversal has been demonstrated on a test device.

A small exception with a named owner can be manageable. An unexplained difference between “succeeded” in the portal and a broken business task is a reason to keep investigating.

References

• Microsoft — Intune settings catalogue support for Windows 11 version 26H2. Accessed 17 October 2026.
• Microsoft — Use the settings catalogue. Accessed 17 October 2026.
• Microsoft — Security baselines in Intune. Accessed 17 October 2026.
• Microsoft — Manage Windows feature updates. Accessed 17 October 2026.