Request for info - program to push windows updates to PC's?

[Henry]

I was hoping someone might be able to turn me on to a program that has the functionality to take a server internal to a local network, and set up other windows 2000 and XP systems to refer to it for windows updates, instead of requiring a high-bandwidth connection.

Our work site has a 128K internet connect/partial T1; updating all of our windows machines with windows updater will kill our bandwidth. Therefore, if one system acted as server and downloaded all critical updates, it would keep from overloading our connection.

This is the format that Corporate Anti-virus suites work under; I assume there must be a program that accomplishes this feature. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Silveras]

I *think* MS has just such a tool. If so, it would likely be in the Windows Server Resource kit, or the like.

Your best bet for a good answer would be to contact MS customer support.

 

[Henry]

Thanks for the heads-up - I'll check Monday.

As for calling MS tech support, I'll leave that as my last option. My previous experience has been being charged much money for a lot of sound and fury -- signifying nothing.

Thanks!

-H

 

[Nine Hands]

We use SMS (Systems Management Service) but it is rather complex and requires both money and a client to be installed on the workstation. If you can get it, it works great if setup correctly.

The week we installed the MS03-039 patch to ALL devices in the company (that is around 831 servers and 30,000 workstations) in the last 2 days.

 

[Hand of Evil]

We use Altiris to push and inventory.

 

[reapersaurus]

Henry- I believe what you want is the Systems Update Service (or SUS).
It is a relatively new service that MS has put out specifically for what you describe.
A student of mine had it working beautifully for his company (he had to update 70 servers), but when we tried to run it in class quickly, it didn't seem to work.

But it was a good-looking service, it just didn't work for me in a lab environment, but I didn't look into it any further - I'm sure you could make it work with more effort.