Windows Update Services 2.0 delayed until mid-2005?!?! | The Coffeehouse

warren
atom heart mother

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622959,00.asp

TORONTO—Microsoft is delaying by a full year two of its four software patching/upgrade systems, company officials told those attending the worldwide partner conference here.

...

Mike Nash, the head of Microsoft's security business and technology unit, delivered the delay news to partners on Monday, the third day of the four-day partner conference. Nash said that WUS and MU both have dependencies on Windows Update, another of Microsoft's patching systems. Windows Update Version 5, the most recent release of that product, is due to go live simultaneously with Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Okay, look. This update to SUS has been promised for a very long time already, with great fanfare and ZERO product to show for it. And now it's being delayed for ANOTHER FULL YEAR?

Mike Nash, whoever you are, quit your job. You're a *ing disgrace to Microsoft. The amount of ill-will that this new delay will create in the admin community simply cannot be overstated, and is all at once intolerable, inexcusable, and unjustifiable. If Microsoft were really, truly committed to getting good security tools into our hands, this product would be done by now, or at least in public beta along with all the other next-generation MS security products (ISA 2004 Beta 2 and XP SP2).

Karim
Trapped in a world he never made!

LOL! Warren, I'm not sure whether I should suggest that you switch to decaf, or if I should throw you some more raw meat and amphetamines and applaud. LOL

This would be Mike Nash:

http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/7/0,1311,sz=1&i=75021,00.jpg

Bink calls the delay "a shame" (he must drink tea):

http://bink.nu/DesktopModules/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=2155

Paul Thurrott has a little more insight in his article:

http://www.winnetmag.com/windowspaulthurrott/Article/ArticleID/43245/windowspaulthurrott_43245.html

"[First,] the March release of the Windows Update Services closed beta has spurred overwhelming interest from customers and partners evaluating the product. Microsoft has assessed this input as part of the beta cycle and is committed to incorporating the feedback before releasing the next beta release for the Windows Update Services Open Evaluation Program."

Translation: The closed beta was so buggy, the testers threatened to impale us on pitchforks unless we wrote the entire thing over from scratch for the second beta.

"[Second,] the Windows Update Services team is developing a new Automatic Updates agent that will be included in [Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)]," she said. "The new agent is used both to improve the updating experience for XP SP2 users connecting directly to Windows Update and for users who will leverage Windows Update Services in their corporate environments in the future. This decision to include the new Automatic Update technology in XP SP2 and perform the necessary integration and testing requires the development schedule for Windows Update Services being staggered behind the XP SP2 release."

Translation: We can't START developing WUS until SP2 is FINISHED. Or at least that's what Microsoft Project is telling us....

Cider
Daze-d & Confused

Aye, full credit to yer, Warren!

It is a disgrace that this has been delayed so much and Microsoft should really take a good long hard look at the teams involved and look at how they can do things better.

Obviously, WUS is based on other technologies such as those based in SP2 and the Microsoft Installer team's MSI 3.0 but its ridiculous that this should happen, especially when combined with the ridiculous silent delay since the first beta.

SUS 1.0 is OK but its so typically a Microsoft 1.0 product - does the job just about, with a lot of tweaking, but 2.0 is just what people are clamouring after. I know so many people though, who just couldn't go with SUS and are desperately waiting for WUS and if Microsoft is serious about their dedication to Security, they should throw as many resources at this as possible to guarantee it is out by the end of this year (and I mean, calender year, not your Microsoft years!).

And I'd expect Bink to be calm about it. He'sh Dutcsh and they don't get very upshet about thingsh. Heh, it was so difficult to not do that accent whilst at Tech Ed in Amsterdam recently, especially when - in the spirit of the best Grolsch advert - we were told to change terminal at Schipol airport because "thish terminal ish not ready"...

Charles
Welcome Change

Warren, passion is great. However, personal attacks of any form are not. Let's remember to be respectful.

Don't forget about the Channel 9 Doctine.

Keep on posting,

Charles

Cider
Daze-d & Confused

Charles,

I understand the need to be respectful, but I can understand why Warren feels so strongly.

Microsoft is going on and on about how important security is. However, to admins, especially in medium/large size enterprises, its a case of talking the talk, but not walking the walk. I cannot emphasise how important WUS is, and how long people have been waiting for SUS 2.0/WUS/WUS 2.0 & MU (as it now appears to be).

As I have suggested before, maybe Channel 9 should get more people involved in Channel 9 than just members of the development teams. Members of the WUS team and Microsoft Installer team would be great as, respectively, security is so important and MSI 3.0 (and going on towards MSI 4.0 in Longhorn timeframe) is such a key core component of all these technologies.

manickernel
anticipate consequences..

... did someone say raw meat??

as for Warren and the Doctrine.

Maybe he is just "being" #2 and perhaps it is time for #6

warren
atom heart mother

Karim wrote:
"[Second,] the Windows Update Services team is developing a new Automatic Updates agent that will be included in [Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)]," she said. "The new agent is used both to improve the updating experience for XP SP2 users connecting directly to Windows Update and for users who will leverage Windows Update Services in their corporate environments in the future. This decision to include the new Automatic Update technology in XP SP2 and perform the necessary integration and testing requires the development schedule for Windows Update Services being staggered behind the XP SP2 release."

Translation: We can't START developing WUS until SP2 is FINISHED. Or at least that's what Microsoft Project is telling us....

SUS 2.0 (or 1.1) could have contained stuff like:

- An "Approve All" button,
- A "Filter" to narrow down the list of available updates to the specific platforms used in your organisation,
- An MMC interface to go along with the browser interface,
- A simple reporting interface to show which updates have been downloaded by which clients, and
- Fix the bug which prevents the "Accept" and "Don't Accept" buttons from appearing on the EULA dialog when the administrator is using a machine with large DPI fonts enabled,

and there would be no cause for concern that the big upgrade to WUS is still a year off. SUS isn't fundamentally flawed... it just needs some work.

manickernel
anticipate consequences..

Warren,
You may already be familar with this, but one of the tools I find invaluable is the reporting tool by Wayne Flynn from susserver.com

http://www.susserver.com/Software/SUSreporting/

It takes some time to set up, but is well worth it.

warren
atom heart mother

Charles wrote:
Warren, passion is great. However, personal attacks of any form are not. Let's remember to be respectful.

Point taken about personal attacks.

That said, respect and disrespect are things that are earned based on ones actions, or lack thereof. Disrespect has been shown to the Windows system administrator community by promising such an important product, for so long, and then utterly failing to deliver. We've been lied to. Therefore, expect disrespect in return.

Manip

This does seem contradictory to their new strategy; they have even been selling the concept of auto-update to everyone lately. I would assume that someone deemed this a low priority to the company and moved the coders to SP2. That would explain the delay.