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What is a Windows Build

I work for a company that does SCADA systems.

we are planning to deploy windows server for these systems. We will need to come up with a way to send windows patches to an FTP site so that their IT department can install the patches on the offline servers.
My question is, what is a windows build? for example, I have two test servers here that are on Windows server 2019
one has build 17763.2061 and the other has 17763.1158.
If I were to manually download patches for each of these servers, would they both be able to take the same updates being that they are different builds?
I’m just trying to determine if windows updates can work on the same server versions even if they have dirrerent build numbers.

Topic

This is changing.

In reply to What is a Windows Build

Microsoft is slowly removing the options to pick and choose which updates.

As such are you sure that Windows is right for your application?

Also, a nod for you to research and take a class from Microsoft about “WSUS.” That topic is too big for me to cover here.

thanks but no thanks

In reply to This is changing.

I didn’t ask for a smart remark response. I’m very familiar with WSUS servers. I guess I should nod my head too since I ask for some help here and I get a jackass like you riducule me because you THOUGHT I didn’t already have experience or did research so far from Microsoft.

Our engineers are trying to see if we can set up an FTP site for these available patches. get over yourself already!

Odd reply but hey, you must be stressed.

In reply to thanks but no thanks

Of course you can set up the FTP site for patches.

As to the patch compatibility NO ONE can answer that one without researching each patch. That said I know an IT staffer that uses the rather awful “try to install the patch and see what happens.”

That does seem to work today as Microsoft has included code in the patch to check if the target OS is compatible.

BUT Microsoft is moving away from allowing us to pick and choose patch levels. That is why I questioned you if Windows is the right OS for this use.

Re: build

In reply to What is a Windows Build

A build is just a sequence number of a working system. It’s common, nowadays, to build a new version every night automatically from the latest modules available, and each one has a number.
In fact, if you apply a few updates yourself, you’re in effect making your own build. Which seems a daunting thing to do.

And, yes, there might be a dependency between (versions of) modules. Windows Updates knows how to handle them. So does APT in Linux.

So it might be best to never update these offline devices since they can’t be reached by malware.

wrapping up my question

In reply to Re: build

Hi Kees_B. Thank you for answering my question. So just to wrap things up, let’s say that I have one server 2019 standard that is build 9600 and we have another server 2019 standard that has 8500, does that mean we can’t use the same windows update patch that I can find in the windows catalog site?

The reason I’m asking this, is because we are working on doing away with an OS called Open VMS that used old HP servers, and are now going to use new servers with Windows platforms.

So what we’re trying to figure out is, if we buy a server in house that has server 2019 standard with a different build version and apply our own patches so that we verify that our proprietary software works after patching; then sell other servers with same OS to our customers and provide them the same windows updates, would those updates still work on our clients’ different build versions of server 2019?

Hopefully it makes more sense now on what I’m trying to get at.

Re: build

In reply to wrapping up my question

If the update works on build 9600, it could very well be that it’s dependent on something Microsoft added or changed in build 8501 to 9599 and won’t work without the same changes done first. And that cascades.

That’s why Microsoft uses cumulative updates that contain all changes since the install of the current version.

[Author]

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