Lately we had received some calls where ISA Server was not using the latest updates, which is fine although is not recommended. However when the subject is Service Pack then it might be a supportability blocker if ISA Server is not running within the supported Service Pack level. ISABPA does a great job in warning an ISA administrator that his ISA Server 2004 is not running with SP3 as shown below:
But today the issue is not only having the system with the latest update, is really a supportability matter. ISA Server 2004 SP2 is not supported since January 13th 2009 as shown in the table below:
Products Released
General Availability Date
Mainstream Support Retired
Extended Support Retired
Service Pack Retired
Notes
Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 Enterprise Edition
3/1/2005
4/13/2010
4/14/2015
3/11/2006
Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 Enterprise Edition Service Pack 2
1/31/2006
Not Applicable
1/13/2009
Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 Service Pack 1
3/11/2005
4/10/2007
Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 Service Pack 3
10/29/2007
Review Note
Support ends 12 months after the next service pack releases or at the end of the product's support lifecycle, whichever comes first. For more information, please see the service pack policy at http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/#ServicePackSupport .
Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 Standard Edition
9/8/2004
10/13/2009
10/14/2014
Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 Standard Edition Service Pack 2
From: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=2108
Same applies to ISA Server 2006 RTM (without SP1), which the support will end July 14th 2009 as shown in the table below:
Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006 Enterprise Edition
10/17/2006
1/10/2012
1/10/2017
7/14/2009
Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006 Service Pack 1
7/2/2008
Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006 Standard Edition
From: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=11928
So if you are in an unsupported scenario (or about to get into this stage) make sure to plan your update as soon as possible to avoid supportability concerns when opening an incident with Microsoft CSS.