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Windows Server Update Services - WSUS My goal is persuade you to download WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) for your Windows 2003 Domain. The WSUS program is free from Microsoft; the concept is sound, what have you got to lose? Introduction to WSUS The principle behind WSUS is that your Windows 2003 server contacts Microsoft's master update service on the internet and copies down all the patches, security updates and hotfixes locally. If you have the time you can test then 'Approve' the patches before your XP or Vista clients update from their local WSUS server. When time is short you can omit the approval stage, or just give the patches a quick look. As a bonus you can create a Group Policy to control who gets what and when. For example, apply patches to XP computers in Accounts OU at 02:00hrs. Guy recommends: SolarWinds LANsurveyor LANsurveyor will produce a neat diagram of your network topology. But that's just the start; LANsurveyor can create an inventory of the hardware and software on your machines and network devices. Other neat features include dynamic update for when you add new devices to your network. I also love the ability to export the diagrams to Microsoft Visio. Finally, Guy bets that if you take a free trial of LANsurveyor then you will find a device on your network that you had forgotten about, or someone else installed without you realizing. Download a Free Trial of LANsurveyor 3 Elements of WSUS - WSUS itself, the service which runs on the Windows 2003 (Member) server
- AU which runs on the clients (XP or Vista).
- Group policy which regulates which clients get which patches.
What WSUS does is work with Intellimirror and Group Policy to support XP clients. The group policy template wuau.adm is responsible for the WSUS updates. This wuau.adm comes automatically with Windows Server 2003. WSUS - WUS in a name?WSUS (3.0) used to be called WUS (2.0). It seemed that whoever trawled the world's languages checking an acronym is not rude, missed Welsh. In Welsh WUS, could mean a friend as in 'Watch ya wus, unfortunately for Microsoft, WUS could also mean, a fool, an idiot. 'Dew, dew bach, that new scrum half is a bit of a wus'. Thus a few years back Microsoft discretely phased out the word WUS and heralded son of WUS - WSUS. Installing WSUS Server Side
1) Download the WSUS product as a .msi from Microsoft (No worries it's free)
2) Make sure that your server is running at least IIS v 5.0
3) Run the installation Wizard
4) On the server, you need at least 500MB disk space per locale. How to Install AU clients
Apply SP2 on XP or SP3 on Windows 2000 Pro - that's all you need to do on the client side. The rest of the install is handled by Group Policy. Configuring WSUS on the Server As I mentioned earlier, SUS needs IIS v5.0, so here is the clue that you configure it by typing:
http://ServerName/susadmin in the browser. Once installed, you net to 'Set Options' to align the configurations with your network. When you have downloaded and checked the updates, you can select patches or hotfixes that are needed and then 'Approve' the update. After that Group Policy takes over and distributes the approved updates to the clients. Alternatively, you can bypass approval and let Group Policy roll out the patches just as they come from Microsoft's site. Network administrator's that I have talked to prefer the 'Approve' method because they like to control which SUS patches to let out onto their network. Microsoft have always been good at providing logs, and SUS is not different you can easily check which patches have been approved and when your server synchronized with the Microsoft master serer on the web. WSUS WSUS (Windows Update Service) will enable you to update Office, SQL Server, and other Microsoft products. SUS on the other hand neither supports Windows 9x nor does it support Microsoft Office. Watch out for WSUS, currently in version 3.0 Thanks to http://computerperformance.co.uk/w2k3/W2K3_SUS.htm
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