Microsoft Windows Server Update Services Reviews

We can use the tool monthly to make updates concerning security and other things.

The tool has only one feature, which is updates. 

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services needs to improve its reporting feature. The tool's competitor has better reporting capabilities. 

I have been using the product for 15 years.

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is scalable. My company has around 1000 systems. 

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services deployment is easy. You must go to the Windows features and configure the system. Then, you can install the updates. Once installed, you can start configuring the required settings. All these configurations are straightforward and can be set up in the Windows Update System Server console. Once it is set up, it downloads all the updates from Microsoft. It will then deliver the updates to the system based on our policies and rules.

The solution's deployment can be done in-house. 

We need one single key for Windows deployments, which is a better option. Buying a license with the same key for all systems, like Windows and Windows Desktop, makes configuring easier. Otherwise, it isn't easy to manage multiple keys for different systems.

You can get the tool as a default feature in Windows. You can manage everything from one single place using WUSS. It's free and comes with Windows, but you must buy a license. I rate the overall product a seven out of ten. The solution requires people with experience in systems. 

The solution is used to push the patches, have a central location for patch management, attach all your service infrastructure, keep up to date, and serve security updates.

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is an easy-to-use and stable solution.

The solution's stability could be improved because sometimes, there are some problems in communication and sending updates and patches.

I have been using Microsoft Windows Server Update Services for several years.

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is a very stable solution.

I rate Microsoft Windows Server Update Services a nine out of ten for stability.

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is a scalable solution. Around 60 to 70 users use the solution in our organization.

The solution's technical support is great.

The solution's initial setup is pretty straightforward.

The solution's deployment takes around three months. The solution can be deployed in-house depending on how strong the IT department is within the organization.

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is not an expensive solution.

I would recommend the solution to other users. If someone wants a less costly solution and doesn't want to invest too much in licenses, they can choose Microsoft Windows Server Update Services. The solution is more suited for small businesses, not huge enterprise customers.

Overall, I rate Microsoft Windows Server Update Services a nine out of ten.

PowerShell is a valuable feature.

The product must improve its support.

I have been using the solution for a few years.

The solution is pretty stable. I rate the stability an eight and a half out of ten. Sometimes, we have minor issues.

I rate the tool’s scalability an eight out of ten.

I opened a ticket with support two weeks ago. There have been only two email conversations between me and the team regarding the ticket. There have been no other responses. The support team is normally good.

Neutral

It is very easy to deploy the product.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Our company currently uses Microsoft Windows Server Update Services to install updates on the Windows systems that have been provisioned in the cloud.

The primary use case for the solution is for managing and monitoring a distributed database system in a production environment.

We were specifically looking for cloud-native solutions, and this particular solution perfectly aligns with our roadmap to transition to the cloud and leverage as many cloud-native tools as possible.

It is a tool that helps our organization meet our work requirements. I haven't exploited it to an extent where I can't comment extensively on what features I like in the tool. So, it may take me a year to do so.

The only complex part was the solution’s tricky setup phase. It should be made easier. The person working in our company faced challenges initially while trying to enter the solution's setup phase. However, going through the documentation for the solution might be helpful.

I have been using the solution for about two months. Also, I am using the solution's latest version.

Considering the two months that I have used the product, I am absolutely happy with its stability and performance. It is a stable product.

Our company started using the solution recently. We have a limited number of users and administrators within the Azure cloud team who currently utilize the available cloud solution. To be more specific, there are only about three to five users currently using the solution.

Since it can handle a much larger workload than it claims, it is a scalable tool.

Our company plans to increase the usage of the tool extensively when there is a need to move the workload to the cloud platform.

Our company has previously used Microsoft System Center's on-premise version. Since it was a native cloud tool, we moved to Microsoft Windows Server Update Services.

Even though the initial setup was tricky, it was easy since ample documentation was available.

The solution is deployed on the cloud. Regarding the time taken for the deployment process, after experimenting with the tool for a couple of weeks, we were able to get it up and running in our company.

Our company had only one engineer who experimented with the solution and deployed it on the cloud.

An ROI is there using the solution since, with the cloud-native products, one has to put less effort into using and managing it.

Microsoft's operating model determines the solution's pricing, and we use it based on our enterprise agreement, which incurs an annual cost.

Managing the additional cost beyond the standard license fee can be tricky when deploying a solution on the cloud, as you may also incur charges for data transfer and other related expenses. It is important to be aware of these costs and include them in your total cost considerations so that they don't come as a surprise later on.

I suggest that those planning to use the solution consider whether a cloud-native solution works for them from a cost perspective. If it does, then they should definitely consider it. Since the solution meets my company's requirements, I rate the overall solution a seven to eight out of ten.

As a system administrator at my organization, I use Microsoft WSUS to manage the updates for all the Microsoft products that we are using. Since WSUS is a service that handles the Microsoft updates and their deployments to a group of servers, you could technically call it patch management software.

Just like IIS, it comes built-in with the version of Windows Server that you are using, and we are currently using WSUS on Windows Server 2022 to efficiently manage the updates on all the other servers in our organization.

When you're working in the IT department of an organization, you will often have to set policies regarding what users can and cannot download from the internet, especially when it comes to updates. Most updates are binary files and programs, and these are types of files that can sometimes be harmful, so an organization needs a way to prevent the downloading of these files.

Instead of leaving each server to download their own updates, with WSUS you have a centralized management tool for all the updates alongside a log for all the servers. By creating and deploying a WSUS server that will download the updates from the internet and dispatch them to the other servers, you can have control over the entire deployment process.

Essentially, it's like a Windows Update proxy that you absolutely need to have, as the IT department grants the WSUS server an exception to download files of any type from the internet. This is the only server with such an exception so that you can control what is entering or exiting the network with regard to updates.

The advantage that is offered by WSUS is not only that you can manage all updates (e.g. critical updates, essential updates, feature updates, driver updates, etc.), but also that you can manage the updates per type of operating system; for example, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, and so on. It provides you a way to create classifications of types of updates per type of operating system. And all this, you can do from a single management console.

The main problem with WSUS is that the management console doesn't allow you to do a lot of operations. It's actually quite a primitive console, and has been since day one. In order to be more effective, you need to use another tool from Microsoft that can take advantage of WSUS and also offer you the extra features you need.

For example, SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager) is software from Microsoft that uses WSUS and gives you many more features than you would get from using WSUS alone. To truly manage the updates of your entire environment effectively, you either need to automate the features you need with PowerShell scripts or you need to use SCCM.

To illustrate one particular limitation of the basic WSUS management console, when you download updates with classifications per operating system, sometimes it doesn't offer you a good way to display or regroup updates that are part of a specific group. Or, as another example, if you just want to see the latest updates, the WSUS console will simply show you all the updates that are available. Microsoft uses an updating process whereby each new update will supersede the previous one, meaning it will expire the old updates, but the management console doesn't offer you a way to regroup or display only the new updates while excluding the ones that have expired. This is one of the many management features that are missing from the WSUS console.

One other area of improvement is that when you want to add servers to use WSUS, you can't easily add or search for a server. To add a server into the management console, you need to do other things and wait until the check cycle starts, meaning that you need to wait for a while until you see the newly-added server that will be handled by the WSUS server.

We started using Microsoft WSUS in 2015, although after a few technical problems we stopped using the service because it was causing us a lot of trouble. Later, in 2022, I redeployed a server that we now use to manage the updates for all the Microsoft products that we are using.

As one of the administrators for our WSUS server, I would say that it is very stable.

Regarding the scalability, you can actually configure something of an ERP version of the WSUS service. For example, if you work in a company that has multiple sites and these sites are located in other states or countries, you can deploy WSUS for each site. Once you've done that, these WSUS servers will all communicate with a parent WSUS server that will then deploy updates to each child WSUS.

Therefore, I'd say that WSUS is quite scalable since we can make servers communicate with one another, in the sense that you have one parent source that communicates with and deploys updates to each child WSUS service in a hierarchical arrangement.

My rating for WSUS would be the same rating I would give the overall technical support from Microsoft, and it all depends on the criticality of the incident. Microsoft will sometimes call you within 24-48 hours depending on the urgency of your request, and most of the time, Microsoft support does a good job.

We haven't used any other solution for this type of process as there are no other products that offer the same service, because Windows Update is part of the Windows Server operating system. It is like a black box that nobody knows anything about and you aren't provided with any tools that can offer the same job that the WSUS server does.

Setting up WSUS is quite easy, but the installation itself is just a feature you can enable in your server. If you really want to use it well, you need to do extra configuration tasks, not only in the WSUS server but also in the Active Directory server. You will typically have to create a few network group policies and other configurations in addition to setting up WSUS itself.

I was responsible for deploying our current WSUS server, but we are still in the testing stage. We haven't yet deployed WSUS to be used in a production environment at all, since we are still adding in servers one by one, testing everything as we go along.

The licensing of WSUS is free of charge because it comes with the Windows Server operating system, included as a feature of the operating system itself. It's simply a role that you enable within Windows Server. Technically, we are only a customer of Microsoft and not a customer of WSUS.

For example, if your license for the Windows Server 2022 operating system costs, let's say, $400, then this license will include WSUS and all the other features of the Windows Server operating system (like IIS, etc.). So, ultimately, to speak of the licensing of WSUS, you have to refer to the price of the server license and what kind of contract you have with Microsoft. If you rent, it's a rental license contract, or otherwise you might go with a volume license contract.

Suppose a corporation wants you to buy a number of licenses, and you opt for a group of individual licenses at a price of, for example, $200 per license. If you want to deploy 50 servers, you will need to buy 50 licenses. This method of licensing is very expensive and it will cost far too much to be reasonable. That's why Microsoft offers what are called "volume license" packages.

With volume licensing, Microsoft gives you a discount if you buy a large number of licenses. But with the volume type of licensing, you are not able to get upgrades for the next version, such that if you currently have Windows 10 or Windows Server 2019, you can't upgrade to Windows 11 or Windows Server 2022, respectively. Although these licenses are perpetual, you will be stuck with the same version.

The better option is to go for a rental contract, which means that you merely rent a certain number of licenses each year, and these licenses won't expire unless the contract expires (at which point you lose access to the portal where you can download operating systems and other applications along with their licenses). Importantly, these licenses give you the ability to do upgrades from one version to another. For as long as you are on a rental contract, you will pay an amount of money depending on the type of software you want to rent (e.g. Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Windows 10, Windows 11, Office 365, Visual Studio, etc.), and you will always be able to upgrade from one version to another.

This is just a basic overview of the licensing models from Microsoft; the details are much more complicated.

One piece of advice I can give is that it's important to acknowledge that, sometimes, updates can bring their own problems. For example, when you install an update, you need to wait until the computer restarts, and in some cases updates can cause the computer to crash. The crash may even be so severe that you need to reformat the machine and, thus, you lose your data.

When talking about other administrators who are wondering about whether to use WSUS, I can confirm that it's a very good tool. And, if you're also using SCCM, WSUS is even better because SCCM will give you a lot of features that are not provided by the basic version of WSUS.

If you want to deploy updates with WSUS, you must remember that it's always best to deploy only the security updates and critical updates that are recommended by Microsoft, because other types of updates such as essential updates, driver updates, and feature updates can sometimes cause instabilities in the system.

And sometimes these extra updates can cause problems with other products. For example, you can sometimes disrupt another product from Microsoft by installing an independent system update that will cause, for example, the mailing service to malfunction. You always need to be sure to do backups of the servers before using WSUS to perform updates.

Finally, there are a few other things that you will need to know in order to run an effective WSUS server, such as how to work with Active Directory. With Active Directory, you can more easily configure which servers will use the WSUS and which ones will not. For example, if you want the servers to perform updates through WSUS, you need to set this option in the Active Directory server. If, instead, you want the leave the computers to get their updates from the internet directly, you will also need to set this up in Active Directory. To do all this, you need to have at least a minimum amount of knowledge in creating group policies, security policies, and so on.

I would rate Microsoft WSUS an honest eight out of ten, because even though some of the features are lacking, it handles the basic stuff very well.

We use the solution for update management. 

The solution's most valuable feature is the ability to set logical rules. These rules allow us to automatically apply updates based on their criticality or assign them to specific computer groups. It allows for automatic deployment to specific groups based on predefined logic, eliminating the need for manual intervention in deployment creation.

The tool's integration is easy. It manages everything behind the scenes. 

The product should improve its third-party management. 

I have been working with the product since 2008. 

I rate the tool's stability a nine out of ten. 

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services' scalability is fine. 

Regarding technical issues, I had one that had to go through many levels and back and forth. I don't think they are great. Technical people still treat you like a beginner, assuming you don't know much. The first-level support is not very good, and we almost always have to go to the third level. As a result, it takes a lot of time.

The solution's deployment is easy. 

The tool is included with server products, and its pricing is good. 

The tool can function effectively for small—to medium-sized businesses. However, for enterprise companies, especially in regions like the United States or Europe, it would likely require additional support from a system center management framework to fully meet their needs.

I rate it an eight out of ten. It's beneficial, especially if you have more than a few systems to update. Using Microsoft Windows Server Update Services automates the update process, saving considerable manual effort.

I often use Microsoft Windows Server Update Services for updates and loyalty patch management.

I like that we could evaluate every client and compare some weaknesses and vulnerability exploits in Microsoft Windows Server Update Services. This is a useful way to test applications against an attacker attempting to exploit the operating system.

In the next release, I would like them to provide better connectivity. They must improve the connectivity between the WSS with Microsoft or the client.

I have been using Microsoft Windows Server Update Services for a couple of years.

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is a stable solution. However, there have been some problems with the Microsoft update. We had to do some maintenance before restarting the WSS service or checking the connection between the OS and Microsoft accounts.

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is very scalable. It could be deployed on the network with even 1,000 clients. At present, we have about 10,000 users. 

The initial setup wasn't complex. It's easy. I think that it could be run in one day. It needs weekly or sometimes daily maintenance to check and update the signature or to check and get the update via Microsoft.

We implemented this solution.

It doesn't need a license. It's offered for free with Microsoft.

I would recommend this solution to potential users as it's a vital service in every network.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft Windows Server Update Services a seven. 

It is being used both in my company as well as in my client's companies. We work on the basis of customer demand and whether they go for Windows or Linux. 60% of users use Microsoft since it's user-friendly and if they want the capability of maintaining the servers over the CLI then they tend to prefer Windows.

The centralized management and merging capabilities are useful. Windows users can switch from open access to data from the Linux servers. 

The various security updates are good for the users as well as the organizations it helps keep the solution safe.

The performance has been okay.

Technical support is responsive.

It can scale. 

A few bugs need to be figured out for the security side. A few of the bugs are not even fixed completely on a full scale, and sometimes that will be tough. If a client is not maintaining proper network security, their data will be breached. The security updates need to be released regularly from Microsoft so that there won't be any loopholes in the OS.

The initial setup may be a bit difficult for beginners. 

The solution is costly.

When we shift onto the graphical user interface, there'll be a bit of a lack of processing speed as there are a number of graphics included in the OS when we shift to the GUI. We'd like CLI and GUI to be equally responsive. Many users prefer the GUI, yet then they suffer from less performance due to the graphics.

The performance is okay. I would rate it seven out of ten in terms of stability. There sometimes are bugs in the product.

The solution can scale. 

We have medium-sized to enterprise-level organizations. We also use the solution for smaller organizations that would like the cloud to save costs on IT infrastructure. 

We work with 250 or more companies that use this solution.

Technical support responds spontaneously if you raise any tickets or queries regarding to the products. I raise a fewer number of queries to technical support since we are the engineers. We tend to go to the client and fix issues. In the case of major issues, we'd reach out to technical support, and they respond spontaneously within 24 hours.

Positive

We previously used Linux servers. We switched based on client requirements as they wanted a user-friendly service even with engineers assisting them.

For beginners, it might be a bit complex to set up the solution. However, with well-experienced guides like engineers, it would be easy for them to fix the infrastructure and deploy these Windows servers.

It is a bit expensive. 

The cost would be taken care of by my accounts team, so I'm not that involved in licensing. That said, to my knowledge, it's a bit expensive. If any clients want to implement their infrastructure to be run on Microsoft, then they need to purchase every license for each service. If the client wants to go for a Windows server, they need a license for the client machines and a license if they want to operate a Mail Exchange server. If all this could become bundled into one thing where small-scale industries and medium-scale industries can buy it as one item, that would be ideal. 

I'm a consultant as well as a Microsoft-certified system engineer. We are Microsoft partners.

Most likely, all my clients would prefer an on-premises deployment. They want the data to be secure as they likely have confidential data regarding their users, as well as the company's data, would be on their servers. 

That said, a few clients would prefer cloud services like AWS. It totally depends upon the clients and what they would like to go for and whether they be like to invest on the on-premises or if they would like to go for a cloud to cut costs.

Most people are moving onto the Linux side, where they feel more secure, however, compared with the admin agents who are not well-versed at the CLI level, many prefer the Windows server, which is the alternative. People should remember that though there is a graphical user interface for Windows Server, they can still operate in CLI mode, which would be very fast, and very similar to a Linux OS.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.