Team: Huntress Managed Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
Product: Managed Microsoft Windows Defender
Environment: Windows OS
Summary: Windows Defender checks for hourly updates, but is always up to date if the endpoint machine is up to date.
Can I force an update? How do I know if my Microsoft Defender is up-to-date?
These are done through Windows Update and Defender itself, so if your machine is up-to-date and recently rebooted, Windows Defender usually is.
Note that while you can task Defender to update through the Huntress portal, that command sent to Defender is only a suggestion. Depending on the state of the machine's Windows Updates, current Defender version, current Defender definition version, load on machine, and load on Microsoft's servers you may or may not see Defender update immediately after sending the task. This is the same behavior as locally telling Defender to update either in the UI or PowerShell/CMD, it's merely a suggestion and not guaranteed to download any updates!