Free ways to push updates and force reboots

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

1. 1
   Using free tiers of cloud endpoint patch management tools like Action1
2. 2
   Setting local GPO or Intune update deadline policies to force reboots after a grace period
3. 3
   Scripting updates with PowerShell using winget or Chocolatey and logging to a network share
4. 4
   Bundling patch management through endpoint security software like ESET or Malwarebytes
5. 5
   Baking a pre-patch reboot into the maintenance script to ensure a clean state.
6. 6
   Running automated scripts to query the pending reboot flag and force a restart without interaction.
7. 7
   Relying on application-level High Availability (HA) to manually reboot servers whenever needed.
8. 8
   Configuring dual-reboot maintenance windows (one reboot before patching, one after).
9. 9
   Executing scheduled weekly reboots regardless of patch cycles to clear any lingering states.

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.