Pretty much a stellar compilation of information on WSUS setup, administration and operations from multiple community and MS resources: Kudos to Rob for pulling this together and publishing in one place. http://uphold2001.brinkster.net/vbshf/wsus/wsus_faq.htm
WSUS installation failures have been reported on some OEM preconfigured SBS 2003 systems. Investigation into this issue has uncovered the following problem:
During the SBS OEM mini setup the domain name is entered by the customer and added to the AD. This property is set in the AD as lowercase. During WSUS installation, the instance of WMSDE is set to case sensitive. During the setup process an attempt is made to give access to a security account which fails because it can't find the account in the AD. The check is doing a case sensitive check (since the instance of WMSDE is set to case sensitive). Since the AD has the domain in lower case and the process is looking for an upper case entry, it fails. Example: Setup process is looking for SJMPC\IWAM_DELL-OFV7446Y6N , but the AD shows sjmpc\IWAM_DELL-OFV7446Y6N , since the instance is case sensitive, the install fails.
To work around this problem, use the following special procedures for downloading the WSUS installer file, extracting WMSDE from the WSUS installer file, installing WMSDE from the command line, and then installing WSUS. The proceedure steps are documented on the WSUSwiki under SBS issues here: http://www.wsuswiki.com/WSUSonSBS
Client script samples are making life easier when managing AU across environments. Check out the TechNet Community Script Center's AU script samples, and Rob Dunns' addition of install/present reboot notice, onTorgeir Bakken's force client update (to latest version) then email logfile to designated recipient....(from MS samples)! Good Stuff!!
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/scripts/default.mspx
http://uphold2001.brinkster.net/vbshf/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=199&posts=1
Folks have been asking what is the difference between the types of updates available for direct download from the Microsoft Update site, and the updates that are available for synchronization or download to the WSUS servers. At the time of release, Windows Server Update Services supports download (or synchronization) of critical and security updates (and drivers), their associated rollups, and service packs. Additional optional updates such as feature packs, tools, and non-critical drivers are planned and will be available in future WSUS synchronizations with Microsoft Update. While we dont know the precise timeframe more optional updates will be available to WSUS, we can say that is in the future plans. Hope this helps.