Windows Server Update Services(WSUS)
I was feeling a little adventurous yesterday and decided to update the Windows Server Update Services(WSUS). This package is a great tool for managing and tracking the updates to windows computers in a small business server environment. There are other products that may do a little better job but you cannot beat the price(Free). My version of WSUS was working okay but the console had always been very slow and occasionally I yearned for a little custom reporting. I could read between the lines, too. Microsoft really wants us to upgrade to 3.0 so you better be ready soon! I opted to get it done when it fit in my schedule. I cannot really complain about the slowness since I am running it on a server with less than the recommended CPU power. Before I could upgrade I had to install two packages:
- Microsoft .Net Framework Version 2.0
- Microsoft Report Viewer 2005 SP1
Although my version of WSUS had been migrated over to SQL Server, I did not need to alter the registry as indicated in the README file. With all of the prerequisites in place, I invoked the upgrade. The inplace upgrade took a long time but it completed without error. That is always a good sign. The only part of the upgrade I had not paid attention to was that the new console had completely replaced the old web-based console. The old console was no longer available. The good news is that I could run the upgrade on my workstation and I could install the new console as long as I had met the prerequisites(i.e. .Net 2.0 and Report Viewer 2005). After looking it was finished I went back to see what it had left behind. The SUSDB was gone. I did find a new SQL Server instance called “Microsoft ##SSEE” that was visible in Server Management console. It probably is a SQL Server 2005 Express database since it wants the SQL Server Management Studio to manage it.
Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 SP3
This service pack was released today, 5/1/2007. I did not see any advance warning in the mailing lists. Since I started updating the server yesterday and it was still in good condition for more updates, I went ahead and applied this one. This one installed without problems. I will add a new server configuration report for my records.
[tags]sbs, isa 2004, wsus[/tags]