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I’ve spent the last few days working on a Microsoft Software Update Services (SUS) proof of concept for a client. In my last job, I implemented a hierarchy of SUS servers across Europe, to manage our Microsoft patch distribution. The system works – but it is a v1.0 product, and is somewhat limited in its [...]

For anyone having difficulty diagnosing issues with Microsoft Software Update Services (SUS), I’ve produced a SUS troubleshooter diagram. In addition, the following resources may be useful:

SUSServer.com.
SUS statistics report (for analysing IIS logs).

Following on from my overview of Microsoft Software Update Services (SUS), this post suggests some best practices that should be applied to patch management using SUS.
Check daily for correct SUS synchronisation
Each day, the Microsoft Software Update Services administrative tool should be used to view the synchronization log. This will indicate if there were communications issues [...]

Like Microsoft Software Update Services, the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) is a security toolkit component born out of the Microsoft Strategic Technology Protection Program (STPP).
MBSA v1.2 is available for download from the Microsoft website and provides a graphical and command line interface that can perform local or remote scans of Windows systems. MBSA runs [...]

The IBM website is not always the easiest to navigate and I spent ages today tracking down the latest BIOS for a number of servers. To save someone else the same issues in future, I recommend that to quickly find the latest BIOS for a PC or server, search for +flash +BIOS +update +<em>modelnumber</em>.
More search [...]

One of my colleagues introduced me to a switch I had mot previously encountered for connecting to the console session on a server using the Microsoft Terminal Services/Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) client. Although not presented by the GUI interface, the mstsc command includes the /console switch. For the full command syntax, type mstsc /? or [...]