WSUS 3.0 SP2 RC Program now available on Microsoft Connect!

I am very pleased to announce that WSUS 3.0 SP2 RC will be available to the general public today, May 26, via the Connect Site.

 All you have to do is sign in to your Connect account or sign up now in order to participate in the RC program.
This program is available to all registered and authenticated users of Connect.

WSUS 3.0 SP2 RC Overview

New Windows Server and Client Version Support

· Integration with Windows Server® 2008 R2

· Support for the BranchCache feature on Windows Server 2008 R2

· Support for Windows 7 client

WSUS Feature Improvements

Auto-Approval Rules

· Auto-approval rules now include the ability to specify the approval deadline date and time for all computers or specific computer groups.

Update Files and Languages

· Improved handling of language selection for downstream servers includes a new warning dialog that appears when you decide to download updates only for specified languages.

Easy Upgrade

· WSUS 3.0 SP2 can be installed as an in-place upgrade from earlier versions of WSUS and will preserve all of your settings and approvals. The user interface is compatible between WSUS 3.0 SP1 and SP2 on the client and the server.

Reports

· New Update and Computer Status reports provide the ability to filter on updates approved for installation. You can run these reports from the WSUS console or use the API to incorporate this functionality into your own reports.

Software Updates

· Stability and reliability fixes for the WSUS server, such as support for IPV6 addresses greater than 40 characters.

· The approval dialog now sorts computer groups alphabetically by group name.

· Computer status report sorting icons are now functional in x64 environments.

· Fixed setup issues with database servers running Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008.

· A new release of Windows Update Agent is included with WSUS 3.0 SP2 that provides improvements and fixes, such as support for APIs called by non-local system callers in a non-interactive session.

For more information about this release refer to the Release Notes for Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP2 RC.

 

Thank you very much for your participation. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

 

Regards,

Cecilia Cole

WSUS Program Manager