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Reboot before patching by spruitt

We've all experienced users that blame absolutely everything on patching. My personal favorite is the person who blamed us for the problem that started just after she received my email announcing that...

Configuration Manager (SCCM 2007) Software Updates by spruitt

I just finished writing the initial Wiki articles about Software Updates in Configuration Manager , and hope others will contribute to it. It covers migration from SMS 2003, installation and configuration...

Patching in SCCM 2007 by spruitt

Here’s a summary of some of the most significant differences I found in patching between SMS 2003 and SCCM 2007. Note that other differences I don’t list may be significant to your deployment process....

Patching and Communications by spruitt

Patch Management is only partly a technical activity. Good communications are at least as important, if not even more so. No matter how well you designed your deployment plan to support the needs of your...

Patch Process Design and Communications by spruitt

Have you ever designed a patching process, only to find that users and managers complained after you implemented it, and no one supported you? Good planning and communications with the right people help...

Recurring advertisements are required for patching by spruitt

My co-worker Shaun Cassells made an important discovery when we began patching with SMS 2003. When you advertise the patch update packages, you must always set up a recurring execution. The logic of the...

Patch Management Process Overview by spruitt

I've seen several postings recently from people just getting into SMS patching that don't know where to start. This article is intended to help them understand the basics of the process, and link...

Allowing selected users to postpone patching by spruitt

Someone asked an interesting question in the mssms mailing list recently. I answered it there, and thought it was worth recording in a blog as well. He wanted to know how to deploy patches so that some...

Identifying and selecting Office patches by spruitt

If you are preparing your first Office patches, you may have a hard time finding them in the Distribute Software Updates Wizard. Office patches are set up a little differently than OS patches. How differently...

Unexpected reboots when patching by spruitt

Have you ever had users complain that their computer rebooted unexpectedly about the time you deployed patches? Maybe it gave them a brief warning, but no chance to postpone? We ran into that, and it took...

Baseline Patching by spruitt

Do you concentrate just on applying the latest updates? Do you figure that once last month's patches are done you can forget about them? If so, you are leaving some machines vulnerable without realizing...

Patch Deployment Strategy and Scheduling by spruitt

How do you schedule when updates will be applied to your machines? What deployment strategy and design do you use? Patching always carries the risk of unnecessary accidental disruption, but that risk can...

Verifying Authorized Times and Setting Grace Period by spruitt

In my earlier article, Settings for Distribute Software Updates Wizard , I said that we changed the grace period on the command line as required to change the patching deadline for various deployments...

Patching Standards or Objectives by spruitt

When you deploy the monthly security updates, what success rate is your goal? Sure, we'd all like to patch all of the machines every month, but that usually isn't practical. As in many areas, the...

Patch Management - More Than Just Deployment by spruitt

Many people think that patch management is just about deploying the patches, and doesn't require any further thought by anyone. If your company does that, it's leaving itself exposed to unnecessary...

Patch Testing by spruitt

We apply patches to protect our computers from outside attacks, but we also need to protect our computers from the patches themselves. This isn’t just idle speculation – last year our company had a half...

Patch Deployment Data Errors by spruitt

You’re only likely to run into errors in the patch definitions and deployment data if you have a fairly aggressive testing schedule. Any errors in the data released on Patch Tuesday are generally corrected...

Patching "exception" workstations by spruitt

We all have computers whose users say "You can't patch my machine automatically. It has to be done manually." Or maybe they say "My machine can't be patched. The software is too...

Settings for Distribute Software Updates Wizard by spruitt

Many people have come up with different settings for DSUW, based on their environment and personal preferences. Here are the settings I chose, with the reasons. The ITMU scanner is always run prior to...

Using psexec to patch machines manually by spruitt

We all want to patch every computer easily, using SMS. We can't always do that, though. Some PCs have products that need patches but aren't supported by ITMU, and we don't wantto use SUSFP...
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