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Pushing Patches Across a Wide Area Windows Network?

Posted by Cliff on from the dealing-with-the-vendor-imposed-patching-cycle dept.

meridian-gh asks: "Microsoft is releasing new patches and updates for their products continually. For those of us who have to deal with large, geographically diverse windows-based networks, managing patches can be a nightmare. You cannot trust the users to do it. Tools such as SMS and HFNetCHK Pro are neat, but incredibly expensive. Most free programs I have seen don't support Windows 98, which many of us are forced to deal with. My question is, how do you deal with the remote deployment of patches in a efficient (and cheap) manner?"

4 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Sorry, but Windows is an expensive investment by bmetzler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you are going to pop the money for all those Windows licenses, licenses for SMS, or Zenworks or something isn't going to kill you. Or shouldn't if you budget properly. It's all part of the TCO. If the TCO of Windows is too high, perhaps it's time to look at something with a lower TCO.

    -Brent

    1. Re:Sorry, but Windows is an expensive investment by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have a hard time sympathizing with management who would willingly use Windows 98, especially in the year 2003. Windows 98 was nothing but pain for me (I ran it on the kids' computer for a couple years). I switched it to XP Home and all my problems went away.

      Expense notwithstanding, the first thing I would do is upgrade to a _business_ operating system, i.e., Windows 2000. Windows 98 is oging to be dead soon anyway from what I understand. Microsoft is dead-ending their old software really agressively these days (of course, the same will be true for Windows 2000, which is a shame).

      After that, there are tons of solutions available.

      I know it's not realistic to expect PHB's to upgrade the OS, but in the next year or two it's going to be mandatory if you want continued support.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
  2. Re:Wrong problem... by styrotech · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's kind of like asking: My Hyundai Excell keeps breaking down and it won't haul 6 tons of gravel - what can I do to make it work?

    The real sloution, ditch the Hyundai and get a Terex

    That truck looks waaay overkill for 6 tons of gravel - and it wouldn't help at all if you needed to haul it on a public road.

    Seems a bit like recommending Solaris, Irix or AIX as a general purpose desktop OS.

  3. CD image by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 3, Insightful

    First off -- you should be running two tiers of systems; one where a default set of applications are installed, and users' installs aren't guaranteed to stick; and one where a user assumes responsibility of his own machine and has to figure out his own problems.

    Now your job is greatly simplified. Use a utility that overwrites the boot partition on a machine with the image stored on a CD. (Let users store their data files in a second partition.) Update the OS to the current level, and make an image CD using it. Then get a flunky to go to each machine and re-image it. (Do this after hours when the place is empty.)

    Presto. You're updated.