We currently do not install Office 2016 in our image. We install it after we log in with the domain user after imaging. We are in the process of switching over to Patch Management Solution with SMP from WSUS. My question is, how do I handle Office updates? Right now I do not have the updates packaged into the installer of Office 2016 because it drastically slows down the install on a machine, which means that whenever we first install it on a station it shows that it requires nearly 50 patches from SMP just for Office. Should I create a single policy that contains all 50 policies and assign it to all machines that have Office, then continue to add all new updates to the same policy to help freshly built machines? My initial thought with other updates was to create a single policy with just this months updates.
To begin with we're only going to be patching the OS and Office, so I was just going to create a single policy with this months updates and push it to all stations after piloting of course, but if I do that I'm not sure if that will mess with a newly built station that is missing office updates from a year ago. Would anyone mind shedding some light on best practices for handling this situation? I think that I have an idea as to how to manage patches on a machine that is up to date, but I'm confused on managing a machine that requires updates from months ago.
Thank you.