Microsoft Evolves Its Windows Update Infrastructure

Topics Windows Vista, Windows XP on February 8th, 2008

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 are not the only Microsoft products being released to manufacturing this week. Cecilia Cole, WSUS Program Manager, announced that WSUS 3.0 Service Pack 1 had also reached RTM, and was subsequently made available for download. But at the same time, the RTM stage of Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP1 following in the heels of Windows Server 2008 is not coincidental. WSUS 3.0 SP1 is in fact designed to provide support for the Redmond company’s latest server operating system.

“I am very excited to announce the release of WSUS 3.0 SP1, now live and ready for download! This is a significant release that represents a huge milestone for all involved,” Cole stated. “The improvements that SP1 offers include: support for Windows Server 2008; new Client Servicing API (Support client registration; filter of updates by category and classification; provide applicability rule extension mechanism and obtain package metadata and report update status for each client); and improvements for local publishing: supports publishing of drivers within the enterprise by using vendor provided catalogs.”

While the new release of Windows Server Update Services 3.0 impacts in no way end users, SP1 will cause reverberations across corporate environments, as WSUS is used to deliver updates to businesses via Microsoft Updates. Service Pack 1 comes to the table with a range of enhancements, and will evolve the products management, stability, and performance capabilities. Additionally, WSUS 3.0 SP1 will also deliver all the modifications and hotfixes issued by Microsoft since WSUS 3.0.

“WSUS 3.0 SP1 delivers new features that enable administrators to more easily manage and deploy updates across the organization. This package installs both the WSUS 3.0 Server and WSUS 3.0 Administration Console components, for all Windows Server 2003 SP1 supported languages. Additionally, the WSUS 3.0 SP1 client is included in all supported client platform languages. You must install the server components on a computer running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2003 SP1 or later. You may install the Administration Console on a remote computer running Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 SP1, or Windows XP SP2,” Microsoft informed.