Educause Security Discussion mailing list archives
Re: Experiences with automaticWindows Updates
From: Michael_Maloney <Michael_Maloney () MIDDLESEXCC EDU>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 13:37:13 -0400
Jeff, What I have done is use a SUS server, and then in the person's login script, the start/stop commands for Automatic updates (NET STOP WUAUSERV, NET START WUAUSERV). This forces the system to look at the server, and update the PC. This seems to catch new updates at each login, vice the "I hope it works" way it seems to work with Automatic Updates just sitting there waiting to do a update Mike ******************************************** Mike Maloney Sr. System Engineer Middlesex County College 2600 Woodbridge Avenue Edison, NJ 08818 Phone: 732-906-7754 Cell: 908-217-2086 Fax: 732-906-4266 Email: Michael_Maloney () middlesexcc edu ******************************************** -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Giacobbe [mailto:giacobbej () MAIL MONTCLAIR EDU] Sent: Friday, June 11, 2004 9:53 AM To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU Subject: [SECURITY] Experiences with automaticWindows Updates Greetings, Our campus is in the final stages of developing a standard Windows XP image to be deployed on all University owned PC desktops and laptops. Our standard image is based on XP Pro, Service Pack 1 with all of the latest patches. So far the only real functional problem we have run into is inconsistent results when trying to automate Windows Update to run once a day. Sometimes it will work fine, but often it will fail to download the updates, or download them but not install them. Initially we attempted to run Windows Update as a scheduled task, but found it would only work if an Admin was logged in (the vast majority of our users will be logging into their machines as PowerUser with added group rights of Backup Operator and Network Config Operator.) Currently, we have configured the Windows Updates as a System Properties task that is running the "AUTOMATIC WINDOWS UPDATE CLIENT" (ie, wuauclt.exe) which runs once per day at noon and (usually, but not always) downloads and installs updates regardless of who is logged on. Has anyone else had problems getting automated Windows Updates to work reliably? Any tips for configuring this beast to work as advertised? ;-) We done a little bit of trolling on Google and found a number of people reported bad experiences with the whole process, but others that have it working fine. Thanks in advance, Jeff Giacobbe Director of Systems, Security, and Networking Montclair State University ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Discussion Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/cg/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Discussion Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/cg/.
Current thread:
- Experiences with automaticWindows Updates Jeff Giacobbe (Jun 11)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Experiences with automaticWindows Updates Hahn, Jacob (Jun 11)
- Re: Experiences with automaticWindows Updates Barros, Jacob (Jun 11)
- Re: Experiences with automaticWindows Updates Michael_Maloney (Jun 11)