The explanation as posted to the SUS NG-
About 9 hours ago we did indeed release service packs for Windows 2000 SP4
and Windows XP SP1 as new content through SUS. To address one of your
concerns, we could have done a better job of advertising this coming change,
and if something similar happens in the future (not likely) we'll try to do
a better job at comminicating *prior* to the change. Let me try to address
some of the other issues or concerns that you've raised.
1) Lack of notification about this change.
This change has been discussed as "coming" quite a few times in this
newsgroup, as well as a couple of 3rd party community sites, but we did not
specify a date for the change. Part of the reason behind that was because
of creating expectations and not meeting them. This change was going to
occur last week, but was put on hold at the last minute because of the
pending release of MS03-039, which is such a critical patch that we did not
want to distract from its importance by releasing service packs on the same
day.
We also have a disadvantage about notifying users. We have never
required registration to download or use SUS. I personally wish we had a
list of all SUS users so we could send email directly, but we don't.
Although the coming change has been mentioned in this newsgroup, in reality
most people only visit the newsgroup when they have problems or
questions...they likely wouldn't have seen those discussions (or any
"official" notice) anyway.
The "SUS content notification change" alias is useful to find out when
content changes, but we don't have the capability of easily modifying the
text of the email since we don't directly control the emailer and it gets
generated automatically. Again, if we had a list of registered users we
could have bypassed the emailer and done notification more directly.
2) Can this new feature be turned off?
Unfortunately, no. Delivering service packs is essentially the same as
delivering any other critical update or security update. The only way that
we could possibly provide a method to turn it off would be to produce two
separate versions of SUS: one that downloads service packs and one that
doesn't. Doing so would be time-consuming and would distract the product
team from working on the next full version of SUS.
The reason that this feature was turned on to begin with is because
every customer that we have talked to, either in person, conferences, on the
phone or through email, has expressed extreme wishes to see service packs
delivered through SUS. A year ago there was a completely different version
of SUS in beta that would provide service packs, but in order to get it you
would have to have an SA (Software Assurance) license, which is not free.
The overwhelming feedback that we got was that service packs should be part
of the "normal" SUS. In all the discussions and feedback that we've had,
including here in the newsgroup after it was stated that service packs would
be available by the end of September, we haven't had one person complain or
say they didn't want service packs (at least as far as I know.)
3) Size of download
Yes, downloading the service packs won't be fast, especially on slow
connections. It will be about as painful as the initial setup and
synchronzation of a SUS server, but it will only happen once...at least
until the next service pack is released, and that is still several months
away. This is going to be more painful for customers on slower connections,
but I don't know how we can easily alleviate that, at least in this version
of SUS. The next version will allow you to specify *exactly* what content
you want, and only download that content so you don't get content you don't
need or never intend to approve, but the current version can't be modified
to do that. Again, service packs have been such a high-volumn request that
we feel that the majority of our customers are willing to put up with the
pain of the download once every few months.
4) About silently changing features without proper notification
I completely understand your point, and I do agree that we probably
could have made better efforts. If anything like this happens again (again,
not likely) I'll definitely keep this request in mind. Most of my comments
about #1 are still applicable though. We unfortunately don't have an easy
way of notifying our users in cases like this when we need to. :o(
Final note: Jose does work for MS, and has taken over responsibilities for
answering newsgroup posts. I haven't been very active in the newsgroups for
several months because of that. I'm going to try to start diverting some of
my time to pay a little more attention to the newsgroups (I've been telling
myself that for several weeks though) so that I can assist Jose and perhaps
provide additional help. I accept responsibility for not posting
information on these changes to the newsgroup earlier today, at least to
provide confirmation that the change was intended. I should have done that.
-don
--
Don Cottam
Microsoft Corporation
Software Update Services
-----Original Message-----
From: Crenshaw, Jason [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 1:17 PM
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] SUS does SPs now
You should see a "roll-back/recall" in SUS 2.0. I didn't hear about the SP's being
available in SUS until this morning when I saw that it was something that was
available to be published, so something or someone must have pulled the trigger for
this to happen. Being an Enterprise customer of Microsoft, they usually go way out of
their way to ensure that we know about major upcoming changes before going live with
them.
I guess Microsoft is tired of getting slammed with deployment problems for SP's. For
anyone not using SMS, UpdateExpert, or something else along those lines, deploying
SP's enterprise wide can be a task within itself.
It's too bad that Microsoft doesn't offer patches in a two prong manner. One being
you can just install the one "hotfix" for a particular problem and the other would be
a complete rollup with every patch released for a particular OS.
Of course, it is easy to say that from a customer side. I don't have to write or
manage any of the changes; I just have to work with what I am given.
Jason
From: Celone, Mike [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 1:12 PM
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] SUS does SPs now
If the SP is installed through SUS it will show up in Add/Remove programs on the
server. You can uninstall through that.
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: Comeau, Steven [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 2:12 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] SUS does SPs now
I like the idea of doing service packs, but only to systems outside of my main
servers. Will SUS allow you to do rollbacks in the event of serious issues that
service packs bring that cause us to commiserate here? Maybe an UN-SUS feature?
Steven "Duuude" Comeau
Systems Administrator
Main Tape
1 Capital Drive, Suite 101
Cranbury, NJ 08512
1-800-526-8273 x332
-----Original Message-----
From: England, Christopher M [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 10:27 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] SUS does SPs now
News to me as well. Here is a little blurb that now appears on the SUSAdmin welcome
page:
"Microsoft Software Update Services (SUS) now provides Windows service packs (SPs), in
addition to critical and security updates.SUS will deliver Windows XP SP1, Windows
2000 SP4, and all future service packs for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and the Windows
Server(tm) 2003 family of products."
Yay Microsoft!
Chris
---------------------------------------------------------
Christopher England
Server Administrator
MCSA, Server+, Network+, A+
College Information Technology Office
Indiana University
-----Original Message-----
From: Parker, Edward [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 9:14 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [ActiveDir] SUS does SPs now
I got this after My Sync last night. I did not have to upgrade or
anything. I hope this is not old news.
Microsoft Software Update Services (SUS) now provides Windows service
packs (SPs), in addition to critical and security updates.SUS will
deliver Windows XP SP1, Windows 2000 SP4, and all future service packs
for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and the Windows Server(tm) 2003 family of
products.
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