REMOTE MS SECURITY UPDATES FOR WORKSTATIONS

[llambert2]

We are looking for utilities to remotely send Microsoft Secutiry Updates to NT and 2000 workstations. We have regional offices thruout the country, and some are not big enough to warrant an IT person. The Office Managers and administrative staff there aren't qualified to do this. So our alternative is to fly someone from our IT dept to each regional office.
Instead we are looking for a utility that we can use thru our network to send these updates as they come out from Microsoft. We would probably want to send the updates to the remote locations server, in order to cut long distance traffic. But then send them to each workstation from that server. Is there a utility that can do this from our central office location. Or is there one we could run at the remote server.
I know such utilities exist, but rather than try them and figure out which work and which don't I would like to hear from anyone out there that has used one and what was good/bad about it.
Any other recomendations are welcome too.
Thanks for your time and effort
Len

 

[bcastner]

I am not certain of the size of your organization, but the basic description is a perfect fit for the Microsoft Systems Management Server:

http://www.microsoft.com/smserver/

 

[llambert2]

bcastner

Thank you, I looked at it and I realize that I should have mentioned that the size of the company includes about 1500 comuters. I'm not sure if the SMS would work for us too well. But I appreciate the help. I only looked quickly but it was only referencing 25 CALs. Unless there is another larger user license.

Len

 

[Davetoo]

Have you looked at the SUS from Microsoft?

I'm Certifiable, not certified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[bcastner]

1500 is no problem. Microsoft for example uses SMS to manager over 300,000 computers. The licensing can easily fit 1500 client CALs.

The SMS 2003 primary management server can support 8 processors, but even a single processor SMS server can handle notify tasks at around 5 per second. What is nice is that you no longer need a seperate server license if you deploy secondary SMS servers; only the client CALs.

 

[llambert2]

lander215

Will SUS work on NT. I am aware of it being on 2000 and server 2003. But will it work in updating an NT Workstation from the 2000 server?

 

[llambert2]

Can SMS update the secutiry updates etc, that would be odn on SUS. The FAQ's mention using them both together... that they are compatable used at the same time. Is there a need to use both or does SMS already do the work of both? What would the limitations of SMS be if not?

 

[bcastner]

Computer operating systems where Software Update Services (SUS) can be installed:
Windows 2000, Service Pack 2 or above.
Windows Server 2003.

 

[bcastner]

You can use both, or just SMS.
Description of the features of both products:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/sus/suschoosing.mspx

 

[lizdunn]

With SUS to work with XP workstations, do the users need local admin privileges for the updates to install?

 

[GuiTech]

The quickest and easiest way, that I know of, is to create a patch management system in your logon scripts. If you are running any kind of logon script, which you should be, you can program in any language to install the patches. You deploy the patch to local servers and use the appropriate switches to make them run silent and force a reboot. We use WinBatch to do this, but you can use the normal batch language as well.