Adam Marshall is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer who specializes in security. As an IT Specialist, Adam takes care of everything IT related including hardware, software, networking, firewalls, backups, desktops, servers, Active Directory, Exchange, Dynamics GP and InforCRM.
After years of working with WSUS, he searched for a way to automate ... Read More
24
Jun2020
13
May2020
There is no cost to use WSUS from Microsoft, they provide it free, included with Windows Server, but there are costs associated with it—mainly the salary or wage of the person that needs to run and maintain the system. Also, if you choose to contact Microsoft Support directly, you will ... Read More
29
Apr2020
As an IT professional, your employer pays for your knowledge and expertise so it’s important to spend your time wisely.
While keeping up with WSUS maintenance is crucial, it can eat up a lot of your time. For many companies, a subscription to WAM is actually the most cost-effective method to ... Read More
15
Apr2020
WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) and SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager) are both Microsoft products. While they’re often discussed together, especially in relation to updates, they are two distinct products.
In the most general terms, WSUS is software that system administrators use to manage Microsoft updates.
Once updates (including critical and security ... Read More
25
Mar2020
How often do you perform WSUS maintenance? Is it a monthly task? Quarterly? Or maybe even yearly? Microsoft recommends monthly maintenance, but ideally, you should be proactively maintaining your servers and database for optimal performance.
The problem is, not many people have the time (or desire) to undertake monthly WSUS maintenance, ... Read More
11
Mar2020
If you’re running into performance issues with your WSUS server, your first step should be to investigate the WSUS database to see if it’s the cause of the errors. If you’re lax with maintenance, the database could be filled with unneeded and unnecessary updates, which can significantly slow down performance.
The ... Read More
26
Feb2020
Removing unnecessary updates will free up a significant amount of space on servers. While WSUS knows when older updates become obsolete and are no longer needed, they remain on the server—taking up space—until *you* remove them.
You can manually remove unnecessary updates by running the Server Cleanup Wizard (SCW) and selecting ... Read More
12
Feb2020
A basic WSUS deployment is composed of a single server within a corporate firewall which connects directly to Microsoft Update. In this simple configuration, updates are downloaded directly to the server. If your configuration includes multiple servers, you’ll have a hierarchy that will include an upstream server and downstream or ... Read More
29
Jan2020
Many IT administrators are lax with WSUS maintenance. While Microsoft recommends monthly maintenance, and outlines the steps required in 17 pages of detailed instructions, the truth is, many IT specialists just don’t have the time.
Instead of proactively maintaining their server environments, many people put off the task until something goes ... Read More
15
Jan2020
If you do not need—or do not want to deploy—certain updates to your network ever, you need to manually select and decline updates. Declining updates for the sake of managing what you see in the update views is NOT the way to manage WSUS. You should scope your views instead ... Read More