General question regarding the scheduled task to run WAU

[madijk1969]

We are using the Intune configuration profiles with ADMX backed policies to define the scheduled task. For most of our business it runs every Tuesday around noon, but since a couple of weeks I receive remarks that the Internet bandwidth consumption is high around that time. We use WAU for most of the applications to be updated, so every now and then, there can indeed be a lot to download. Would be great if Microsoft was supporting this with Connected Cache, but OK.

Any recommendations from the community to randomize the scheduled task update time across the business without creating a lot of different policies?

[KnifMelti]

Hello, nice to hear from another business user!
My work domain contains of 5K+ clients (all of them runs WAU managed from traditional GPO) and I've configured our settings (pulling the list/mods from a web server globally reachable) like:
USEWHITELIST=1 NOTIFICATIONLEVEL=SuccessOnly DISABLEWAUAUTOUPDATE=1 UPDATESATLOGON=0 UPDATESINTERVAL=BiDaily DONOTRUNONMETERED=0 STARTMENUSHORTCUT=1

This means that the task runs at default time 06:00 (AM) and because it's set to run as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed the connections/updates spreads out quite a bit (every 2 days since it was installed on the client/from 06:00 to 12:00 depending on when they come to work/number of at the time active clients).

My colleagues in the Cisco department have never noticed any band consumption higher than usual since my introduction of WAU (I asked them to monitor when introducing it) and this goes back to Nov 30, 2023.

We have a 10GB internet connection (I think).

[madijk1969]

So, basically your recommendation is to schedule a time when users did not start yet and then the scheduled task will pick up as soon as they logon to the device?

[KnifMelti]

Basically, yes.
But it also helps with BiDaily (when it was installed on the client differ a lot based on deployment day of the client).
UPDATESATLOGON=0 is used because we have a lot of shared clients.

[KnifMelti]

The there's always the clients that is always on.

[AndrewDemski-ad-gmail-com]

task Scheduler provides a built-in function to add random delay to triggers defined at specific time.
That AtUserLogon trigger does not have that feature.

[AndrewDemski-ad-gmail-com]

Also..
if all endpoints are triggered at the same time, even if there won't be a single new version of software to install/upgrade, each one of those endpoints will start pulling the latest Source.msix (a ZIP-compatible archive, ~9MB as of April 2025) containing index.db (SQLite DB, ~17MB as of April 2025) for winget to use for detections etc.

I recommend using a proxy for that action.
Source.msix file is stored on a CDN @ MS side, but it would be wise to have it on local proxy in intra with a really shot lifetime in the cache.

[KnifMelti]

@Romanitho
I think it's about time to introduce the activation on the time triggers:

As requested in: #525
PR (and closed) in: #529
But as mentioned: #529 (comment)

Only on "at time" task.
The setting goes into WAU-Policies.ps1 and WAU-MSI_Actions.ps1

[KnifMelti]

-At $WAUConfig.WAU_UpdatesAtTime -RandomDelay "00:30:00" (00:30:00/00:45:00/01:00:00)

[KnifMelti]

#906

[Romanitho]

For me, having a random delay is a good idea, but it should definitely be implemented as an optional setting. On the other hand, some might prefer to have something that triggers as soon as possible if a schedule is missed — especially in cases where apps need to be updated before users start using them.

[madijk1969]

Is this already in the roadmap as I have not seen updated documentation on it yet.