Quick Tip: How to Track Xbox One System Updates

We spend a lot of time keeping an eye on operating system updates, both monthly through Patch Tuesday and the Windows Insider testing builds, in order to understand what is being addressed and improved on our collection of devices.

So, just like Windows 10 has its update history page for all shipping versions of the desktop operating system, the Xbox One has a support page that summarizes the current and past updates to the entertainment/gaming device OS.

Of course, that is not the only thing they have in common because they both share a common core for their operating systems that is used across all Windows 10 based devices.

So first to find out the latest OS update for the Xbox One visit the following site:

http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/console/system-update-operating-system

If you scroll down the page a bit you will see the latest updates information expanded on the screen:

Just below that, for historical purposes, you will see a list of past updates to the console operating system:

You can click on any entry and find the details for that update.

Pro Tip: In the build number for OS updates, such as (th2_xbox_rel_1510.151217-1035 - the last one listed above) you can find the date and time this build was compiled by pulling out the last 10 numbers.

In this case build 10.0.10586.1026 was from 10:35 AM on the 17th of December 2015.

Also, just for your awareness, this page only lists official releases for the console and not builds that were part of the Xbox Preview Program.

Next up is to check your Xbox One console to see what build is installed on your console.

Open up the Settings app on the console and go to System>Console info & updates:

Select that option to open the next settings page to see what current build/version is running on the console:

You can match the OS version against the Xbox One Update History page to see if you are running the latest build. While Xbox One is very reliable about checking daily for OS updates, you can force a manual check by selecting Latest update status on the Console info & updates settings page.

Here you will see the last date/time an update was received, the last date/time there was an automatic check for an update and the status of that last update.

If you come to this page and see an option to Update now then that means you have an update that can be installed for your console.

Think of this as the Windows Update for the Xbox One console.

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