Hello WSUS Admins,

There are 2 new product categories being added to the WSUS Products and Classifications dialog, both under the product family “Office Communicator Server and Office Communicator”. The two new categories are:

Office Communications Server 2007 R2:

The Office Communications Server 2007 R2 product category will include updates for the Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 R2, including service packs, critical and security updates.

Office Communicator 2007 R2:

The Office Communicator 2007 R2 product category will include updates for the Microsoft® Office Communicator 2007 R2 , including service packs, critical and security updates.

For additional information on the Office Communicator 2007 R2 product family, see http://www.microsoft.com/uc/products/default.mspx

Thanks!

--The WSUS Team

I am very pleased to announce that WSUS 3.0 SP2 RC will be available to the general public today, May 26, via the Connect Site.

 All you have to do is sign in to your Connect account or sign up now in order to participate in the RC program.
This program is available to all registered and authenticated users of Connect.

WSUS 3.0 SP2 RC Overview

New Windows Server and Client Version Support

·       Integration with Windows Server® 2008 R2

·       Support for the BranchCache feature on Windows Server 2008 R2

·       Support for Windows 7 client

WSUS Feature Improvements

Auto-Approval Rules

·       Auto-approval rules now include the ability to specify the approval deadline date and time for all computers or specific computer groups.

Update Files and Languages

·       Improved handling of language selection for downstream servers includes a new warning dialog that appears when you decide to download updates only for specified languages.

Easy Upgrade

·       WSUS 3.0 SP2 can be installed as an in-place upgrade from earlier versions of WSUS and will preserve all of your settings and approvals. The user interface is compatible between WSUS 3.0 SP1 and SP2 on the client and the server.

Reports

·       New Update and Computer Status reports provide the ability to filter on updates approved for installation. You can run these reports from the WSUS console or use the API to incorporate this functionality into your own reports.

Software Updates

·       Stability and reliability fixes for the WSUS server, such as support for IPV6 addresses greater than 40 characters.

·       The approval dialog now sorts computer groups alphabetically by group name.

·       Computer status report sorting icons are now functional in x64 environments.

·       Fixed setup issues with database servers running Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008.

·       A new release of Windows Update Agent is included with WSUS 3.0 SP2 that provides improvements and fixes, such as support for APIs called by non-local system callers in a non-interactive session.

For more information about this release refer to the Release Notes for Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP2 RC.

Thank you very much for your participation. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Cecilia Cole

WSUS Program Manager

Hello WSUS Admins,

The MU team has published information about the upcoming release of Vista and Win2k8 SP2 through WU and WSUS. You can find more information on their blog post here.

As always, please review and prepare your environments for this release.

Thanks!

--
The WSUS Team

Hello WSUS Admins,

Shortly we will be publishing a new top level category (product family) for WSUS – Live Search. The Live Search product family will include updates for all Live Search products. Under this product family we will be creating a category for:

•  Search Enhancement Pack – For all updates relating to the Search Enhancement Pack.

 The Live Search products may include updates including service packs, optional updates, critical updates, and security updates.

For additional information on Live Search Products see: http://www.live.com. 

Thanks!

The WSUS Team

By default, Windows Server 2008 SP2 includes the ability to install the Windows Server Update Services Role Service by using Server Manager. This role lets you use the MMC Server Manager snap-in and wizards to install, configure, and manage WSUS 3.0 SP1. This behavior is different from Windows Server 2008 SP1 where the administrator needed to install an update to Server Manager to be able to install WSUS as a Role.

Important:

·         There is no need to install "Update for Windows Server 2008 Server Manager" (KB940518). This update is only applicable to Windows Server 2008 SP1 computers.

Deployment Instructions

·         To install WSUS 3.0 SP1 on a Windows 2008 Server SP2 server that is pointed to Windows Update or Microsoft Update, go directly to Server Manager and install the WSUS Role.

·         To install WSUS 3.0 SP1 on a server running Windows Server 2008 SP2 which is being updated by a WSUS server, do the following procedure.

1.       Enable the following Product Classifications:

1.       Updates

2.       Enable the following Category:

1.       Windows Server 2008 Server Manager – Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) Dynamic Installer category is a container for WSUS updates. These updates are “hidden” such that user will never see a notification or be downloaded by WUA.  These updates can only be downloaded via the WUA APIs. Server Manager is using this method to download and start the install of WSUS.

3.       Approve the Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP1 Dynamic Install for Windows Server 2008 (KB948014) (there’s one for x86 and one for x64). This specific WSUS package is targeted at Windows Server 2008 computers that do not have WSUS installed. This package will only install via Server Manager.

Note: Since the update is targeted at any Windows Server 2008 computers that don’t have the WSUS role installed, these machines will report that the update “is needed”. You do not have to install this update on these computers if you do not want it.

After WSUS is detected as installed by Server Manager it can be configured and managed within the Server

Manager UI/WSUS Snap-in.