WSUS did not download Exchange 2K3 Service Packs

[achen]

Under "Products and Classifications", I had Exchange 2003 and all
classifications selected, but it never downloads SP1 or SP2 of Exchange
2003, and I didn't find any error in the log.

Are the SP's of Exchange 2K3 simply got excluded from WSUS? If that's
the answer, then I think making it possible to select "Exchange 2003"
in the left, and "Service Pack" in the right, is somehow misleading.

[Lawrence Garvin [MVP]]

The Exchange Service Packs are not available via WSUS at this time.

As you may notice, there is no protect-me-from-myself logic written into
either of those dialog boxes. The selection lists are somewhat independent,
but an update is synchronized if it matches A and B.

How would you expect it to protect you from selecting Exchange (and others) in
the left and Service Packs (and others) in the right, without also preventing
you from getting Office service packs, or Exchange security updates, as well?

"achen" <ache...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1133216825....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

[Dave Mills]

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:14:15 -0600, "Lawrence Garvin [MVP]"
<onsitech...@news.postalias> wrote:

>The Exchange Service Packs are not available via WSUS at this time.

<rant>
Now I can understand Exch SP1 being missing as it predates WSUS but
SP2 is a year after WSUS started Beta and 6 mths after Gold. Are MS
trying to kill off WSUS as a way forward, I hope not as it is a great
idea and well implemented for a first release. How many Office,
Exchange, SQL missing bits will it take to move people elsewhere. WSUS
has for me at least proved the concept as essential but it needs to
move to covering all. I wouldn't mind so much if Exchange, Office, SQL
etc were not listed in the products for WSUS

Or is this just MS failing to enforce Exch and other department to
embrace the WSUS concept. It's a bit like the MMC snap in that were
all to be the same but nobody at MS enforced this so there were
differences in various implementations.
</rant>
--
Dave Mills
There are 10 type of people, those that understand binary and those that don't.

[Lawrence Garvin [MVP]]

"Dave Mills" <Ne...@nospam.djmills.co.uk> wrote in message
news:0qgpo1t4j1oto5sn3...@4ax.com...

> On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:14:15 -0600, "Lawrence Garvin [MVP]"
> <onsitech...@news.postalias> wrote:
>
>>The Exchange Service Packs are not available via WSUS at this time.
>
> <rant>
> Now I can understand Exch SP1 being missing as it predates WSUS but
> SP2 is a year after WSUS started Beta and 6 mths after Gold. Are MS
> trying to kill off WSUS as a way forward,

The "official" answer would be to direct your rant squarely at the Exchange
Server SE team, who is responsible for the deployment methodologies of SP2.

The "practical" answer is...: Do you really want to install an Exchange
Service Pack in an unattended fashion? That's the criteria for deployment with
WSUS. The updates must be installable in a fully unattended 'scheduled'
manner -- even though no sane Exchange or SQL administrator would ever install
the update 'unattended'.

> I hope not as it is a great
> idea and well implemented for a first release. How many Office,
> Exchange, SQL missing bits will it take to move people elsewhere.

Actually, outside of Service Packs, there's not really that much missing from
WSUS.

> WSUS
> has for me at least proved the concept as essential but it needs to
> move to covering all.

Patience, Dave... Patience. :-)

> I wouldn't mind so much if Exchange, Office, SQL
> etc were not listed in the products for WSUS

But there /are/ updates for Exchange .. just not Service Packs. As for SQL....
that remains to be seen. With SP4 just released, and SQL 2005 brand new,
there's not a lot of 'content' for WSUS to distribute to SQL Server at this
point, anyway.

> Or is this just MS failing to enforce Exch and other department to
> embrace the WSUS concept.

Not so much a function of "failing to enforce". Microsoft has done an
excellent job, both internally and externally, to make it known to the world
that WSUS -is- the update methodology of the future, and, eventually, as Steve
B. has committed to -- everything will come down a common distribution
pipeline.

Keep in mind, though, that it's only been six months (next week) that WSUS was
released. For a lot of product groups, converting their update mechanisms to
use the WUA and WSUS catalog -- not to mention consolidating update package
installation executables -- may take a bit longer than six months.

> It's a bit like the MMC snap in that were
> all to be the same but nobody at MS enforced this so there were
> differences in various implementations.

Yeah... that has been an interesting exercise..... but I don't think WSUS will
be the child of that experiment. :-)