The most recent content from our members.
In a previous post, I answered the question, What is Patch Management? In that post, I noted that Windows environments generally use one of two Microsoft tools to handle their patching needs: Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM or ConfigMgr). In this post, I address the major…
This has been a busy year for changes in WSUS and Patch Manager. In this article I’m going to summarize these changes. Treat this like a checklist. If there’s something on this list you’ve not yet done, use the next couple of weeks to develop a remediation plan. If you need help with any of this, post a message in the…
With Windows Server 2012 comes WSUS version 6. In the WSUS Deployment Guide for Windows Server 2012, attentive readers will notice a critical change to the historical WSUS deployment strategy: "By default, in Windows Server 2012, WSUS [v6] uses port 8530. However, WSUS 3.0 uses port 80, by default." This might seem like a…
Several of the more technical folks among our customers have asked how SolarWinds Patch Manager communicates with Microsoft WSUS to publish update packages to the WSUS server. Since the process is similar regardless of what patch management tools you use to publish updates, I thought I'd write about it here. The thing all…
I was chatting with Microsoft WSUS MVP and SolarWinds Head Geek, recently about synchronizing WSUS servers, and I'd like to share his recommendations along those lines. Synchronizing WSUS servers ensures those update points have the most up-to-date update information from the update source -- in most cases, Microsoft…
Microsoft Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) provides a nominal amount of reporting information in its native console. This information is primarily related to the updates on the WSUS server and the clients that report to it. More precisely, the information you get from WSUS about its managed clients is limited to their…
Automatic approval rules in WSUS are extremely useful, especially to admins in small shops that don't want to have to review and approve every single patch that lands on their WSUS server. A common example is to create an automatic approval rule that says something like, "Automatically approve all Critical and Security…
I have a custom package that I created to install Adobe Reader 11.0.05 with MSI transforms that we want to use in our company and both 11.0.04 and 11.0.05 MSP files. I can deploy the package as is and it installs as expected on computers that do not have Adobe Reader. However, I want to deploy this to all workstations so…
Hosting providers, like OrcsWeb, have multiple global clients who require updates at discrete times. For example, many of OrcsWeb’s clients have web farms and SQL clusters that need to be patched on a staggered basis. “When you’re patching hundreds of servers, it’s important to spread servers across the maintenance window…
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