Patching – how do you cope?

re: Patching – how do you cope?

Sean Kearney — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:59:50 GMT

And don't forget if you're trying to control what does and doesn't go in Network Wide, just download and use the free WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) Also helps control bandwidth on the internet by having only ONE device do the updates, and I do believe you can still setup the Windows Update / Microsoft update as a fallback on the workstations.

Sean

re: Patching – how do you cope?

Ed — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:53:05 GMT

I used WSUS for a couple of years. When updates came out on Tuesdays, I would get them out on my system and a few others while monitoring the Windows Update newsgroup and other sites to see if there were any issues. We had really just one critical application. If there was no common thread and the select few PCs had no issues with the patches, most of the time, the patches went out company-wide on the Thursday night. All but a handful of systems were considered critical.

Now unless there was something very critical, servers were done manually [not via WSUS] and rebooted during the off hours but not immediately.

re: Patching – how do you cope?

Rick Claus — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:59:07 GMT

Thanks for sharing Ed. Glad to hear that you have a plan to tackle patch Tuesday / Update Tuesday.

Keep 'em comming.

Rick