Best Practices: Security Update Management with Systems Management Server 2003: Webcast 2-27-2006

Thank you for attending the web cast on SMS and Security Update management, as promised here is the scrubbed Q/A log (you kept Chris Avis very busy!).  Please comment if you need more information.  I mentioned a great web site where you can down load the slides and individual demos for this web cast take a look at the session home page:
https://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/events/sms/mgt-12.mspx 

Also if you can watch the stream of the web cast here:
https://www.microsoft.com/events/EventDetails.aspx?CMTYSvcSource=MSCOMMedia&Params=%7eCMTYDataSvcParams%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ID%22+Value%3d%221032288955%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ProviderID%22+Value%3d%22A6B43178-497C-4225-BA42-DF595171F04C%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22lang%22+Value%3d%22en%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22cr%22+Value%3d%22US%22%2f%5e%7esParams%5e%7e%2fsParams%5e%7e%2fCMTYDataSvcParams%5e

Enjoy!

Question: Where can I find FAQ's, White Paper's and technical information on SMS?
Answer: https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sms/sms2003/default.mspx

Question: Are there some peer-based newsgroups for SMS?
Answer:   https://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/server/sms.mspx

Question: Is the current version of ITMU is included in the download for SP2 for SMS 2003. ITMU for SP1 is different from ITMU for SMS 2003 SP2
Answer: Yes

Question: Are there any training classes or books specific to "WSUS" other than install documents?
Answer: I don't believe there are any MS offered courses on WSUS. The TechNet site has a lot of great information on WSUS --- https://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/technologies/featured/wsus/default.mspx

Question: Does the ITMU replace ALL scanners for SMS?
Answer: Yes and No, it all depends on the clients you are deploying to.

Question: IS ITMU available pre-SMS 2003 SP1?
Answer: yes - at the https://www.microsoft.com/downloads  

Question: If you want to manually download the list of updates instead of specifying a *sync* computer, how do u do that and where do you download it from?
Answer:  In WSUS you will manually synch updates to the WSUS server only. If you wish to grab updates manually then you will do that through Windows Update or through the https://www.microsoft.com/downloads   Take a look at Page 7 of the ITMU Deploy Guide which is included in the ITMU download, for more information.

Question: Wouldn't you consider it a security concern that a website is publicly available listing the updates that have not been applied to a particular computer?
Answer: Not really,WSUS requires administrative rights to access. You can further use IIS/NTFS permissions to limit which administrators have access to the site to approve updates.

Question: Is there a better tool than DSUW? disabled?
Answer: Not that I am aware of.

Question: Is there a way to automatically set this up to auto-approve and advertise updates to workstation, similar to how SUS works?
Answer: Yes. You can fully automate SMS via scripting.

Question: Is there a resource that explains how to automate SMS with scripting?
Answer: https://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/sms.mspx   There is also a good intro to SMS scripting here: https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sms/sms2003/maintain/smsscript/script01.mspx