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Such a tool?

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by rsears

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With all of the exploits and security vulnerabilities that seem to get identified a security-minded admin like myself has a difficult time keeping everything patched and up-to-date because of the time that it takes to go around checking servers and workstations. I am looking for tool that would help me to centrally manage service packs and hot fixes for Microsoft operating systems, I?m sure that I am not the only person in this predicament. I stay informed about all of the latest vulnerabilities but find it difficult to figure out which ones are relevant to my particular situation, not to mention identifying which versions of software I have installed in a given situation and determining if the hot fix is going cause any problems. My dreammanagement tool would allow me to determine which hot fixes are installed on a given machine from a remote management console and then allow me to install it, and to be able to pick a bunch of machines from an explorer like interface and ?push? a hot fix or service pack out to them. Does anyone know of such a tool?

I have used PatchWork to identify holes but it only checks for the ones that it was programmed to check for up to the date that version of PatchWork was released. The problem isobvious? Even armed with the knowledge of a particular holes? presence actually installing the fix is still a time consuming process because I have to download it, install it, and verify that it is installed. I want something that will do all of this for me. Am I asking for more than is technologically possible?

5 replies

by dcadmin

Yes, a product from St. Bernard software
now called Update Expert is perfect for
you, it used to be called SPQuery and
seems to have all that you need. It has
research modes and allows you to see
security patches, service packs for os/ ie
sql, exchange and more coming in the
future, you can reboot machines and
send alerts. Check it out
www.stbernard.com
I use it and like it a lot.

by rsears

I have downloaded and tried it a little and can tell it has most of the things I am looking for, now all I have to do is convince my employer that I need it enough for them to buy it, providing there isn't something better that I have not discovered yet.

Thanks

by debisse

We use Netinstall by Netsupport which is partner company of Installshield.
You use an cenralised Org Master server to distribute to sites servers round germany.
you have a lot of possibilities to manage the disribution. Machinegroups, domaingroups, user an all the stuff.
You are able to set the time for automatic install or set it for interactive install.
we use the tool to distribute over 300 applications, servicepacks drivers an so on.
you can use the internal scripting language or in the new version vb or wsh scripts.
take a look at www.netsupport-gmbh.de or look for the installshield site

have fun

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