Most wanted feature for Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) 4.0

Question

Some blogs rumor that the next Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) would allow to host user-defined and even non-Microsoft packages.

What is your wish list for WSUS 4.0?

Solution 1

Non-Microsoft packages would be fantastic if enough people supported it.

All the other standard desktop applications that self update at different times (particularly Adobe Acrobat) are becoming an increasing blight on the desktop environment, causing much user confusion and system instability.

If the vendors could get together and agree a single update strategy via one centrally managed delivery mechanism (whether it be WSUS or an other), we as sysadmins would have a lot more control over the deployment of updates and patches, and far better knowledge of what was happening to our systems.

I live in hope.... :-)

Solution 2

Officially-supported command-line update install functionality. Think "wuauclt /installnow".

Solution 3

Just some simple tweaks to the UI would be really helpful. It's really a pain to approve a large batch of updates. The UI is slow to respond and it doesn't reflect the things you have updated already.

Solution 4

I want to have better (i.e. custom) rules for the Update Views. Here's my scenario:

• All my linked PCs & Servers have updates auto-approved apart from my
  DMZ servers. I approve those manually just in case there is an issue with
  the updates.
• What I want is a view that will show all unapproved updates for a specific target group. That
  seems to be impossible.
• I would also like a view that you can specify to
  show the last X amount of days rather than "last month" or "last week".

Solution 5

Thresholds for notification emails, Eg. send notification if more than 20 new updates were found in the last synchronization. or email if updates were found with particular keywords, for particular products or are in a particular category.

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Comments

[Tony Meyer]

To save other people the google: WSUS -> Windows Server Update Services.

[Adam Gibbins]

Should be community wiki.

[WheresAlice]

There's already been rumors of Adobe gaining access to Microsoft Update by the end of the year so they can ship updates to Flash and Reader that way, so I can believe non-Microsoft package support for WSUS.

[John Gardeniers]

Those rumors about supporting non-Microsoft software have been around since before WSUS was even released. They were started by Microsoft promises to provide such support. I'm not about to start believing them now.

[jgoldschrafe]

Microsoft has an App Store in Windows 8, so presumably it wouldn't be difficult at all for App Store-compatible updates to be pushed out via WSUS. You're right that this is still rumor-mill stuff, but all the plumbing is in place now for it to happen.

[Richard Gadsden]

Java would be the other one that would be a huge win. Generally, something as nice as apt-get update would be fab....

[Keithius]

I agree... the number of programs crying for updates on user desktops is such a drain (not to mention annoying).

[Spence]

Actually, WSUS 3.0 supports third-party update integration but Microsoft doesn't expose the functionality in their "for free" tools. System Center Updates Publisher allows you to deploy third-party updates, as do the for-pay tools from Eminent Software(eminentware.com). The API is called "local publishing". There's a nice thread about some attempts to write a tool to publish updates here: social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winserverwsus/thread/‌​… (and code at sourceforge.net/projects/localupdatepubl)

[Aashraya Singal]

Indeed. There's a few things that could be done to polish WSUS without changing the core feature set that would round out the product as a whole. More power in wuauclt would be solid improvement. Proper cleanup of the SoftwareDistribution folder would be another win, as would the ability to relocate the core WSUS folder to a non-system drive.

[Philip]

MSDN has a VBScipt to do this: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa387102%28VS.85%29.aspx

[Philip]

This is what the very non-free System Center Configuration Manager is for.