AutoUpdateCheckPeriodMinutes Edge & Chrome Policy

Question

I'm just looking for clarification on how this policy should function. My understanding is you set a value(minutes) and the browser should check for updates based on that value. So if I set the policy to '2 minutes', I expect to see in the EdgeUpdate log that its checking for an update every 2 minutes. The task in task scheduler has a default of checking for updates every hour, but I would expect that this policy would override and occur more frequently, no? I'm not seeing in the logs that its checking for updates at the interval I've set, so I just wanted to clarify this. Thanks

Answer 1

Hi @Emily Mertz-Worster

From Edge policy docs, this policy means 'Minimum number of minutes between automatic update checks'. Setting it to '2 minutes' means the minimum minute is 2, not checking for update every 2 minutes.

Besides, from Chrome docs, we can know that Auto-update check period override still relies on the Google Update cycle:

Google Update runs each hour to see what tasks need to be performed. It evaluates each individual policy setting to determine if a task should be performed in that hour.

For example, if you set the Auto-update check period override policy to change the minimum time period between update checks to 480 minutes, then each hour Google Update checks to see if the last update check was more than 480 minutes ago. If not, Google Update waits for the next hourly run and checks again.

From Task Scheduler, we can see that Edge Update also runs each hour, so it's the same for Edge.

I think the above can explain what the policy means and why it doesn't check for update every 2 minutes if you set it to 2.

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Regards,

Yu Zhou

Answer 2

Hi. Thank you for your question and reaching out. I’d be more than happy to help you with your query.

AutoUpdateCheckPeriodMinutes is a policy that can be set for the Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge web browsers. It determines how often the browser checks for updates. The value is set in minutes, and the default value is 240 (4 hours). The policy can be set to a value between 15 and 43,200 minutes (30 days). This means that you can configure the browser to check for updates as often as every 15 minutes or as infrequently as every 30 days. This policy can be useful for organizations that want to control how often updates are installed, or for users who want to reduce the frequency of update checks if they are on a limited data plan or slow internet connection.

If the reply was helpful, please don’t forget to upvote or accept as answer, thank you.