Microsoft Update Product Team Blog : WSUS

Enabling Microsoft Update to keep Office 2003, Office XP, and other Microsoft Products Secure and Up-To-Date

muteam — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:07:00 GMT

Hi Folks –

We want to remind everyone that enabling Microsoft Update and keeping your computer up-to-date will give you the best possible experience with Windows. Are you wondering about the difference between Windows Update and Microsoft Update? Windows Update offers updates for Windows and drivers for your hardware and devices. Microsoft Update offers updates for Windows, other Microsoft software, and drivers. So, if you have any version of Microsoft Office installed on your computer, or any other Microsoft software, then you should enable Microsoft Update. Otherwise you won’t even get security updates for your other Microsoft software.

Enabling Microsoft Update gives you updates for more software, it doesn’t change how you get updates. If you use Windows XP, you can find the updates through Automatic Updates or by visiting the Microsoft Update Website. If you use Windows Vista, you can find all available updates in the Windows Update control panel.

So, you’re probably wondering how to "opt-in", or "enable" Microsoft Update, or check your configuration and stay up to date. It’s very easy, just follow the steps below:

1. To enable Microsoft Update and verify your update settings, click here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=146977.

Note: If you’re a Windows Vista user, this link will take you to the Windows Update Control Panel “applet”.

A. On Vista, on the Control Panel App, if you have not enabled Microsoft Update your Control Panel Windows Update screen will look like this and you will see the Get updates for more products link in a yellow highlighted area. Simply click Get updates for more products, to start the Microsoft Update install and scan process:

B. On Windows XP, clicking the above link will take you to the Microsoft Update page. If Microsoft Update is already enabled you can check to see if you need updates for Windows, other Microsoft programs, or your hardware of devices from this page. If you have not yet enabled Microsoft update, you will see this page. Simply click Start now and follow the steps to install Microsoft Update.

2. Regardless of your Windows version or your automatic update settings, you can always check for new updates and new software available through Microsoft Update. If you are a Windows XP user click here: http://update.microsoft.com/. If you are a Windows Vista user (or Windows 7 Beta user), you can open the Start menu, click All Programs, and then click Windows Update.

Thank you!

The MU Team

Rollout start and client availability

muteam — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:54:00 GMT

Hi Folks - Noticed a little confusion from our blog post yesterday regarding the Windows Update Agent Update availability. Last night's blog post was to give you some lead time before we started rolling out and making our standalone WUA update available. We are on schedule to start the rollout Monday, 11/3/08. Hope this helps and sorry for any confusion.

The MU Team

Windows Live OneCare category coming soon

muteam — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:09:00 GMT

Updated 10/30/08 : WSUS admins will be seeing a new product category under the Windows Live product family in the future. The new product category will be Windows Live OneCare.

Thank you,

The MU Team

Critical Security Update Released Today

muteam — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 22:31:00 GMT

Hello,

Microsoft has released a critical security update today, 10/23/2008 and made this update available via all update distribution channels. For more information see: Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067.

Announcing New Office Sustained Engineering Blog for all Office update information

muteam — Tue, 20 May 2008 03:21:00 GMT

Hi all,

If you use Microsoft Office, a great new resource has recently come online to help you understand how Office updates work. The Office Sustained Engineering blog features release announcements, known issues, explanations of update behavior, and other information about Office updates. If you work with Office updates, it’s worth monitoring this page for the latest info, such as the recent announcement that Office 2007 SP1 will be delivered through Automatic Updates starting in mid-June. Check it out!

Hope this is helpful,

The MUTeam

Early heads-up for Office 2007 SP1 Automatic Update availability

muteam — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:49:00 GMT

Hi folks;

Just wanted to give you an early heads up. Office 2007 SP1 will be available to Automatic Update in mid-June. For all the details, see the Office Sustained Engineering Blog post here.

Thanks!

The MU Team

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 availability update

muteam — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 05:59:00 GMT

IT Pros & WSUS admins,

We are excited about Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and the benefits it provides. We made all 36 languages of SP1 available on Windows Update earlier this week, and we’re planning to begin automatic distribution of SP1 in English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese shortly, but first, we’d like to take some time to remind you of the tools we’ve provided to help you manage the installation.

· If you’re managing systems that connect directly to WU, and you’d like to postpone the installation of SP1 through Windows Update, please remember to deploy the Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool if you haven’t already done so (note: the tool doesn’t prevent the installation of SP1 from CD/DVD or from the standalone package).

· If you’d like to use WSUS to roll out SP1, be sure to check out The WSUS blog - a couple of weeks ago, Cecilia posted information about the availability and steps you should take to deploy it throughout your organization. You’ll find great information about how to import SP1 from the MU catalog now, and it’ll also be a great place to look for more information about SP1 availability directly to WSUS in the future.

· If you’d like further guidance for installing SP1 check out the Windows Vista SP1 Guide for IT Professionals and the Microsoft Deployment Tools Matrix.

We hope you find this information helpful as you prepare to manage its deployment into your organization.

Thanks!

The MU Team

Hyper-V RC availability on Windows Update April 8th

muteam — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:51:00 GMT

Good afternoon folks!

As you may know, Hyper-V Release Candidate (RC) was made available on March 19th via the Microsoft Download Center. Tomorrow, we are making the RC package available as an Optional Update via Windows Update for all Windows Server 2008 SKUs, available for interactive download. It will also be published (classified as an update) to WSUS. Hyper-V RC is a feature-complete version that provides improved stability, usability and performance and enables users to test the support for additional guest operating systems. Find more details about Hyper-V and the RC here.

A couple of quick notes:

Hyper-V is now closer to RTM, but do note that it is still a pre-release version and is only intended to help evaluate the scenarios and get ready for the RTM version. Hyper-V is still on target for RTM within 180 days of Windows Server 2008 (i.e. by August 2008).
The big benefit of applying this update is that systems wit Hyper-V RC can now smoothly upgrade to Hyper-V RTM when that becomes available.

For more detailed instructions, please refer to How to Install Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Release Candidate.

And, just a reminder, you can always find information about new and changed updates that are released here under WSUS Updates.

thanks,

The MUTeam

Vista SP1

muteam — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:26:00 GMT

Hi all,

Today we made Windows Vista SP1 available for Windows Vista systems in English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese.

What does this mean for you? Well, here are some details of what you can expect:

Windows Update Users (or those of you who manage systems that directly connect to WU)

From now until sometime in mid-April, SP1 will be interactively available for customers who visit the Windows Update control panel. In mid-April, SP1 will begin automatically downloading according to the settings selected by the user.

What does this mean?

If you're interested in installing SP1 today, you'll need to click start-->all programs-->windows update and then "check for updates." If previously released SP1 prerequisites are installed, you'll then see SP1 pre-checked and ready for download and installation. After you download the service pack using Windows Update, you'll see a series of screens and be asked to make a few quick choices before the installation of SP1 will be underway. (Note: there’s a few reasons you might not see SP1 available. If you’d like to learn more check out Knowledge Base Article 948343.)

Windows Server Update Services Admins

We'll be publishing SP1 directly to WSUS at a future date, and before then we will make a Standalone Package of the service pack and it’s prerequisites, available on the MU Catalog so that WSUS admins, who'd like to test and deploy the update, can easily import the service pack from the catalog into WSUS. We will give an update when the standalone package is available. At that time we will refer you to the WSUS blog for more information and guidance to prepare for the catalog import of SP1 to your WSUS servers.

For more details on the release of SP1, check out the Vista Team blog.

Thanks much!

-MU Team

Windows Vista SP1 Prerequisite Releases

muteam — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:16:00 GMT

Hi all,

This week we're releasing two more prerequisites for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 that will be coming later this quarter. We wanted to let you know about them because they are both marked as Important updates (and they’re a little different than usual).

KB938371 is a multi-component update that supports the successful install of SP1 and allows it to be uninstalled. KB937287 updates the Windows Vista “Servicing Stack.” Both updates (required before SP1 will be offered via Windows Update) are being made available now to reduce the number of reboots and make installation of the service pack easier.

Even if you're not ready to install the service pack once it's released, you'll want to install these updates because they'll help increase performance and reduce failures for the installation of other updates.

Thanks,

MU Team

New Product Family Expression coming Tuesday, 1/22/08!

muteam — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 03:15:00 GMT

Next Tuesday, 1/22/08, we are adding a new product family to your WSUS server - Expression. The Expression product family will include updates for all Expression products, including service packs, optional updates, and critical or security updates. For additional information on Expression Studio Products see: http://www.microsoft.com/expression/. Tuesday, 1/22/08 we will be publishing the first Expression Media Service Pack (SP1) to the Microsoft Update Site, and making it available (depending your on settings ) via Automatic Update, and to Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

We recommend WSUS admins having Expression deployments in their corporation; select this new product family to synchronize associated update classifications of your choice. Additionally, Expression updates will be available from the Microsoft Update Catalog http://catalog.update.microsoft.com.

Thanks,

The MU Team

But wait.......there's more.... Another new product family, Silverlight coming Tuesday, 1/22/08 !

muteam — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 02:32:00 GMT

We are also excited to announce a new product named Silverlight, is being made available to Microsoft Update site and WSUS customers Tuesday, January 22nd! The Silverlight product family will include installers and updates for the Silverlight browser plug-in for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, enabling simplified delivery of media and rich Internet applications that blend animation, audio/video, and interactivity. To learn more about Silverlight 1.0 visit the website at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight.

The Silverlight 1.0 installer will be published to the Microsoft Update site and available to WSUS servers. It will be applicable for both Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 systems. For users visiting the Microsoft Update site, Silverlight 1.0 will be published as “optional” and available to download and install interactively.

WSUS Admins, this new product family will appear in the "Products and Classification" selection dialog of your Microsoft Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) server, so be sure to select it if you want the Silverlight 1.0 installer to synchronize down to your server. The Silverlight 1.0 installer, will be classified as a “feature pack” for WSUS (so you’ll need to be sure you have that classification selected too), and will require EULA acceptance before approving to targeted managed clients. Additionally, Silverlight 1.0 will be available from the Microsoft Update Catalog http://catalog.update.microsoft.com.

Update (2/26): Today we made the Silverlight 1.0 Installer available to Windows Vista systems! WSUS admins will see it available as a "feature pack" and Microsoft Update users will see it as an "optional" update.

Thanks,

The MU Team

Another note regarding KB935509...

muteam — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 06:33:00 GMT

We had a small number of early customer reports, that in some cases, this update (KB935509) was being offered for installation on all Windows Vista editions vs. just Ultimate and Enterprise. A quick adjustment of the applicability logic was released shortly there-after to refine the edition offering behavior. For systems set to download and install updates automatically, the update will not install even if it has already downloaded, so most people will not be affected by this at all. Customers who installed the initial release of the update on editions other than Ultimate or Enterprise should not be concerned as the update will have no negative impact on their systems – it was designed to install on all versions of Windows Vista, it is just not required on any of the others for SP1.

MU Team

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Note regarding KB935509...

muteam — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 01:50:00 GMT

Hi all,

Just dropping a quick line to let you know about one of the updates we're releasing this week to Windows Update (it's a little different than usual). The update, KB935509, is a prerequisite to Windows Vista Service Pack 1, which will be coming later this quarter.

The update is being released this week, for Windows Vista Ultimate and Enterprise editions, so that the required reboot will be bundled with other updates requiring reboots.

Check out the Windows Vista Team blog to learn more.

WSUS customers: you can find more guidance on this update specific to you on the WSUS blog.

MU Team

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Windows Vista reliability & performance update preview release available today

muteam — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 01:28:00 GMT

Today we have released an update preview release for Windows Vista on the Microsoft Download Center. Today's update release preview is targeted toward improving reliability and performance in Windows Vista. The Windows Serviceability Team is releasing this preview to get customer feedback before our planned Windows Update release (expected to be in January). Today's update preview release is geared toward improving reliability and performance in Windows Vista and we highly encourage you to install it.

It includes:

Improvement of previous issues affecting going into or resuming from sleep/hibernate under some scenarios
Update to address a previous issue with the disk spindown feature to improve battery life for portable systems
Up to 15% improved performance of disk I/O (i.e., copying/moving/deleting large files)

You can find more information about today's update preview release in this KB article. You can download the Windows Vista update preview release from here: Microsoft Download Center. See the Windows Vista News blog for more information on this preview release.

Cheers and happy previewing!

MUTeam