Friday, November 18, 2011
WSUS Offline Update
Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) is a server that downloads Windows Automatic Updates and deploys them via the network to other systems. This eliminates the need to apply automatic updates to each system individually. For example, if a large corporation has thousands of computers, it can be near impossible to apply selective updates to each system individually. Leaving the automatic update option enabled for each system will also choke bandwidth as thousands of systems will be downloading updates separately. A remedy to this problem is to make a WSUS server which updates all system even when they are not connected to the internet. WSUS Offline is a freeware that downloads Microsoft’s Automatic Updates for the Windows Server Update Services.
The latest version of WSUS offline now supports installation of updates for Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0, verification of digital file signatures, deletion of files without digital signatures, optional proxy setting, an option to make ISO image of the updates, etc. From the main interface users can choose to download updates for Windows XP/Vista/7 and Server 2003/2008 (x86/64). The updates can be downloaded in multiple languages as well. Users can choose whether they wish to install updates for Service Packs, Microsoft Security Essentials, clean up downloaded directories, verify downloaded updates, save the downloaded files to a directory, or if they wish to make an ISO image of the downloaded updates.
Similarly one can choose to customize updates for Microsoft Office 2003 or 2007. Unfortunately, this application currently does not support downloading updates for MS Office 2010.
The WSUS Server path should be given for your WSUS server and a proxy (if necessary).
After configuring your settings you can simply click on start to download your selected updates.
WSUS Offline is a very useful tool to deploy updates on multiple computers via the WSUS server. However, it would have been better had this software acted as a Windows Server Update Service itself instead of working via a server. Nonetheless, it works as a good resource to quickly download Windows Updates for the WSUS server, particularly for systems across a network.
