How would you deploy SP3 for WinXP on 800ish machines?

[spoon_]

Exactly, very good question if you ask me.

Any ideas?

From what I know there aren't any app delivery tools available i.e. SMS/LanDesk etc. [don't even ask why]

Machines are spread over 35 locations, up and down the country.

SP2 stopped being supported some time ago now so upgrading to SP3 is critical from business perspective.


Constructive opinions much welcome.


Adrian

[GallaUK]

Do you have a WSUS server?

[Moby-Dick]

so without using SCCM ? - WSUS with local repositories would do the trick - either that install the updates to a DFS share somewhere and push the install silently via login script / task scheduler

[scaryjim]

I'd personally take responsibility for sitting in front of each and every machine doing the install, charge whoever it was £50 an hour consultancy fees for the privilege, and hope it persuaded them to do something about their network / systems architecture

OK, that was cathartic, but not constructive, I guess. Assuming all the clients are on a domain I'd probably go with the DFS share + silent install via login script option. Then once the update was completed I'd sit down and have a long meeting with management to explain why this cannot be allowed to happen again and to stress the importance of automatic update (why *didn't* SP3 get pushed to these machines via automatic update?)...

[leonkehoe]

I'd personally take responsibility for sitting in front of each and every machine doing the install, charge whoever it was £50 an hour consultancy fees for the privilege, and hope it persuaded them to do something about their network / systems architecture

OK, that was cathartic, but not constructive, I guess. Assuming all the clients are on a domain I'd probably go with the DFS share + silent install via login script option. Then once the update was completed I'd sit down and have a long meeting with management to explain why this cannot be allowed to happen again and to stress the importance of automatic update (why *didn't* SP3 get pushed to these machines via automatic update?)...

Agree - with everything, including the first paragraph. You need a system in place to deploy updates on a network of that size, namely WSUS which has already been mentioned.

[1stRaven]

+1 on the WSUS. Its a free bit of software and well worth finding the hardware to run it.

[ChaosSystem]

You are going to have to get someone to install it on the computers manually if you do not have WSUS.
Even using WSUS can cause problems if you have limited bandwidth as SP3 is about 66Mb running Windows Update or 316Mb for the full install.

[badass]

Then once the update was completed I'd sit down and have a long meeting with management to explain why this cannot be allowed to happen again and to stress the importance of automatic update (why *didn't* SP3 get pushed to these machines via automatic update?)...

I never push service packs out by automatic update. Our Sp3 rollout was done by replacing the images and pushing out the new images after extensive testing.
When it comes to service packs, I either want to manually install them or have them slipstreamed somehow. Service packs are far more likely to kill machines/applications than updates.

[mark19632]

Another vote for WSUS.

We pushed out sp3 via WSUS and as long as you've done the testing and stage the rollout you should be fine.

I would go against a logon script as it's a big install and user get impatant. I've also had it looping and never installing with sp2 via a logon script.

[petrefax]

yup, another +1 for WSUS

.

I would go against a logon script as it's a big install and user get impatant. I've also had it looping and never installing with sp2 via a logon script.

totally agree with this - users arrive at their desks, stare at an update screen for 5 mins, get bored & button it halfway through SP3 install, next thing you know you've got a pile of software rebuilds to do. stuff that for a laugh!

[babaracus]

First of all I'd ask: how do you currently apply monthly Microsoft / other security patches to these 35 locations and 800+ machines?

If, as I suspect is the case, the answer is "we don't" then you need to pause and think about the bigger picture. If some level of management is saying deploy SP3 now because they are getting pressured then yes, you can script it / bodge it / manually do it, but it won't actually address the underlying problem.

SCCM / WSUS / even a GPO controlling automatic updates are all far preferable.

Panic and over-reaction (to SP3) is not what you want. It's way past the time this should've been addressed anyway so a bit more time won't hurt.

Don't piss about wasting time but ensure you put a proper solution in place that will fix the problem now, and more importantly make the process sustainable and simplified in the future.

[swinster]

Again, WSUS will do this. I believe you can set upstream and downstream servers so that you can mange distribution across multiple locations (with multiple servers).

Otherwise, I assume that you have an AD domain, then you could push out using a software installation GPO. But honestly as WSUS is free, go there.

[Apex]

Ms sms