During his keynote Tech-Ed 2005 presentation, Microsoft CEO Steve
Ballmer announced that the new Microsoft Update and Windows Server Update
Services (WSUS) were live as of June 6. I witnessed a demonstration the new
tools during Gord Mangione's Tech-Ed 2005 strategic briefing Security: Raising the Bar. Mike Chan, Microsoft
Technical Product Manager, showed how IT organizations can use of Microsoft
Update and WSUS to better manage software updates.Key points about Microsoft Update and WSUS:
- Provides caching support for ISA Server 2004 - This
feature is handy for remote offices with multiple clients. Once the first client
pulls the update from Microsoft other clients can pull the information the ISA
server. - Provides Service Packs and other updates, not just security patches
- Opt-in process to switch from Windows Update to Microsoft Update
- You can run Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) from Microsoft Update.
- You can control which updates are applied to which machines via Group Policy and Active Directory
Unfortunately, the neither Microsoft Update nor WSUS eliminates
the need to reboot after update installation. Mangione and Chan said Microsoft
was working on this problem for Longhorn.
Check out this Microsoft TechNet article for more information on Microsoft
Update and WSUS.
