SUS Useful Resources

This page contains links to various resources that should you learn more about SUS. If you wish to see anything added to this page please feel free to email me the details.

Choosing a Security Update Management Solution White paper [1/11/02]
Download the SUS Client Component [9/11/02]
Download the SUS Server Component [9/11/02]
Group Policy ADM File [15/2/03]
Managing Windows XP in a Windows 2000 Server Environment [1/9/03]
Microsoft Guide to Security Patch Management v1 [15/7/03]
Microsoft Release Management Community Pages [9/6/03]
Microsoft Security Website [1/9/03]
Microsoft's SUS FAQ [27/10/03]
Network Load Balancing Technical Overview [1/9/03]
Patch Management Using Microsoft Software Update Services [11/3/03]
'Patching the Holes' - MCP Magazine Article [17/3/03]
Sign Up for the SUS Email Notification Service [9/11/02]
SUS Components and Features [9/11/02]
SUS Deployment White Paper [1/11/02]
SUS Home Page [1/11/02]
SUS Overview White Paper [11/11/02]
SUS Server with SP1 Release Notes and Installation Instructions [1/9/03]
SUS SP1 is Here [3/2/03]
SUSserver.com [16/6/03]
Understanding Group Policy White Paper [1/9/03]
'Using SUS Without Active Directory' - SearchWindowsManageability.com [14/4/03]
Watch the Flash Demo [11/11/02]
What other resources are available if I have questions or need support for SUS? [06/01/04]

Choosing a Security Update Management Solution White paper

See how Software Update Services relates to other Microsoft security update management solutions:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/windowsupdate/sus/suschoosing.asp

Download the SUS Client Component

Need to download the Client Component? Here's the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/downloads/recommended/susclient/default.asp

Download the SUS Server Component

Need to download the Server Component? Here's the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=A7AA96E4-6E41-4F54-972C-AE66A4E4BF6C&displaylang=en

Group Policy ADM File

Want to download the Group Policy ADM file for SUS? Here's the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D26A0AEA-D274-42E6-8025-8C667B4C94E9&displaylang=en

Managing Windows XP in a Windows 2000 Server Environment

Contributed By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS]
This article provides an overview of the policy-based management capabilities in the Microsoft Windows XP Professional operating system. It explains how administrators can use Windows XP and Windows 2000 Server to manage client computers in a Windows 2000 Server network environment:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/MngWinXP.asp

Microsoft Guide to Security Patch Management v1

Contributed By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS]
The Microsoft Guide to Security Patch Management provides concise information, prescriptive guidance, tools, and templates to help organizations cost-effectively maintain a secure and reliable Microsoft environment through the proactive assessment of vulnerabilities and the application of security patches and appropriate countermeasures:

http://microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=73AC38B7-5826-421D-99E8-CDCC608B8992&displaylang=en#filelist

Microsoft Release Management Community Pages

Contributed By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS]
These pages provide a consolidated list of available community resources: newsgroup, webcasts, 3rd-party websites (including us), user groups, and community resources for related Microsoft products. Customers (and you too!) should now have an easier time locating and using Management Community support resources. Check them out... [Go to article]

Microsoft Security Website

Contributed By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS]
You obviously take the issue of Patch Management seriously to be using SUS but this only forms part of the overall security measures you should be taking to guard yourself from nasties such as viruses, worms, etc. Make a point of bookmarking and paying a regular visit to Microsoft's Security website to keep up-to-date on security issues:

http://www.microsoft.com/security/

Network Load Balancing Technical Overview

Contributed By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS]
If you're running SUS on Windows 2000 Advanced or Datacenter Server then you can use clustering technology such as Network Load Balancing. The following article gves an overview of clustering technologies:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/planning/clustering.asp

Patch Management Using Microsoft Software Update Services

This document provides operational guidance for deploying software updates using Microsoft® Software Update Services (SUS). It provides conceptual information, design and configuration best practices, and details of the operational practices required for successful deployment. It further describes the daily, weekly, monthly, and as-needed tasks that have to be completed in order to deploy patches into a live environment.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/itsolutions/msm/swdist/pmsusog.asp

'Patching the Holes' - MCP Magazine Article

Check out the following article written by Jeremy Moskowitz in the March 2003 edition on MCP Magazine:

‘Software Update Services is Microsoft’s new server for distributing hotfixes and patches across the enterprise. It’s also a tremendous time-saver…’

http://www.mcpmag.com/Features/article.asp?EditorialsID=336

Sign Up for the SUS Email Notification Service

Use this link below to be automatically notified of when SUS updates are available:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/windowsupdate/sus/redir-email.asp

SUS Components and Features

This link offers a high-level of what the features and components of SUS are:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/windowsupdate/sus/suscomponents.asp

SUS Deployment White Paper

Get detailed guidance about deploying Software Update Services. Written for system administrators, this paper presents in-depth discussion of multiple types of deployment scenarios, as well as step-by-step procedures for all relevant tasks.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/windowsupdate/sus/susdeployment.asp

SUS Home Page

Tucked away under the Windows 2000 Section of the Microsoft website you'll find the SUS Section:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/windowsupdate/sus/default.asp

SUS Overview White Paper

Get an overview of Software Update Services, a tool for managing and distributing critical Windows patches. This overview presents customer scenarios in which Software Update Services provides solutions for information technology professionals, as well as an overview of the client and server-side components.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/windowsupdate/sus/susoverview.asp

SUS Server with SP1 Release Notes and Installation Instructions

Contributed By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS]
For details on how to apply SP1 to SUS version 1.0:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/sus/sp1relnotes.mspx

SUS SP1 is Here

SUS Server SP1 is now available which amongst other things allows you to install SUS on a Windows 2000 Domain Controller and Small Business Server (previously you couldn't), Offers better integration with the IIS lockdown tool, and Details links of Software Update Packages.

You can download SUS Server with SP1 already applied from:

http://microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=A7AA96E4-6E41-4F54-972C-AE66A4E4BF6C&displaylang=en

The Release Notes for SP1 are available for download from:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/sus/sp1relnotes.mspx

The Release Notes are in Microsoft Word format, but don't worry if you don't have a copy of Word installed as you can download a Microsoft Word file viewer from:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/000/viewers.asp

SUSserver.com

Featured under the ‘Related Communities and User Groups’ section of the Microsoft Technologies Community Center, this site offers some great resources on SUS including the SUS Reporting Utility. This utility takes the IIS logs created by a SUS server and imports them into SQL ready to generate reports based on ASP pages so you can see exactly what SUS has been up to.

Understanding Group Policy White Paper

Contributed By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS]
You can use Group Policy in a variety of ways with SUS. If you need a little help in understanding what Group Policy is then check out the "Windows 2000 Group Policy" white paper which you can download from:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/howitworks/management/grouppolwp.asp

'Using SUS Without Active Directory' - SearchWindowsManageability.com

If you're using SUS or thinking of doing so you might want to check out the following from the folks at SearchWindowsManageability.com:

'Looking for an affordable way to keep your user workstations humming with all of those critical security updates and hotfixes? Software Update Services (SUS) doesn't have all the answers, but it's a good solution for the money -- free -- from Microsoft. Read how in this three-part series:'

http://searchwindowsmanageability.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid33_gci887883,00.html

Watch the Flash Demo

If you want to learn what SUS is all about without reading loads of documents then check out this demo:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/windowsupdate/sus/flashpage.asp

What other resources are available if I have questions or need support for SUS?

Contributed By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS]
Reproduced from the Microsoft Software Update Services: Frequently Asked Questions web page:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/sus/susfaq.mspx#top

"We recommend that you start with the SUS public newsgroup, which is accessible through a browser. In the left navigation pane, click Management Technologies>Main>Software Update Services. If you prefer to use Outlook Express, you can subscribe to the microsoft.public.softwareupdatesvcs newsgroup hosted on the msnews.microsoft.com news server."