Office 365 - Monthly Enterprise Channel changes

[J E]

Dear all,

has anyone had any experience with the changes to the monthly enterprise channel?
Due to Microsoft there is support for several versions: "N, N-1 and N-2":
MS: "Starting June 1, 2025, the Monthly Enterprise Channel will support N, N-1, and N-2 builds, giving admins greater flexibility during deployment validation." 
Overview of update channels for Microsoft 365 Apps - Microsoft 365 Apps

How are these changes implemented in patch management solution?
I found a new software bulletin called "MS25-06-365-ENTERPRISE-D", D is "deferred"?
Is this related to the changes mentioned above? is deferred N-1?

Next question, I found computers that got two bulletin, the regular one and the deferred one:

I guess we need to change our automation here to prevent such cases, but first we need to understand how it should work.

If you have any insights, please let us know.

Best Regards
JE

[Dmitri Gornev]

Hi JE,

yes, you're right - "-D" in bulletin name stands for deferred.
Implementation is similar to previously already existing one for Semi-Annual channel.
MS25-06-365-ENTERPRISE represents N version in Monthly Enterprise Channel (build 18730.20220 in June 2025) and MS25-06-365-ENTERPRISE-D represents N-1 version (build 18623.20298).
You get both MS25-06-365-ENTERPRISE and MS25-06-365-ENTERPRISE-D applicable to allow you to stay on the current version, change to N-1 (if you need just security updates but have concerns with new features introduced this month) or change to N (to start receiving new features again).
Note that if you install new build of N version (MS25-06-365-ENTERPRISE) you won't be able to install new build of N-1 version (MS25-06-365-ENTERPRISE-D) after this as corresponding bulletin won't be missing anymore. But you can install new build of N-1 version and then later go to new build of N version.

[J E]

Hi Dmitri,

thanks for your detailed answer.
We are interested in the N-2 builds Microsoft mentioned in the article, is this possible as well?

Best Regards
JE

[Dmitri Gornev]

Hi JE,

> We are interested in the N-2 builds Microsoft mentioned in the article

it's not available at the moment (as you can see Microsoft added N-2 version only recently) but I plan to discuss such possibility with the content team given all changes coming for Office 365 in July 2025 (deprecation of Semi-Annual Enterprise Preview Channel, shorter suppor for Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel, support of up to three months of rollback for Monthly Enterprise Channel).

[J E]

Hi Dmitri,

i know that the changes have just been introduced.

Please let us know if you have news about this.

thanks a lot
Best Regards