Microsoft Windows Server Update Services Reviews

I like the solution. When we do patching, the tool gives us error messages. We have around 1,000 production servers. It is tough to push Microsoft patches to 1,000 servers. When the servers fail, we troubleshoot to understand why they were not patched.

IIS is the web server for Windows Server. There are some bugs in IIS. It must be improved.

I have been using the solution for three years.

I rate the tool’s stability a seven or eight out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a seven out of ten. We are a printing and packaging company. We have more than 4,000 customers globally. We maintain all our customers’ data in our data center.

Whenever we face issues, we raise them to Microsoft and resolve the issues.

Positive

Compared to Linux, Windows Server’s setup is easier.

We are planning to move to AWS. Our organization has given the employees the credentials to learn AWS. We also have Linux servers. We are not using all the services from Microsoft. We use what our organization needs. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

The solution is used for Microsoft updates and you can file the updates that you want to use.

Every time we need to install our security updates and critical updates, we use this software so that we don't load the bandwidth.

I like that I can filter for critical and security updates.

The dashboard is okay.

The initial setup is easy.

It is a scalable solution. 

I have found the product to be stable. 

Support is helpful.

The customization capabilities could be improved. 

The product must integrate with third-party applications. I'd like to use the product to verify third-party updates as well as Microsoft updates.

I've used the solution for about three years. 

My understanding is that it is a stable product. We didn't have any issues with it overall. I don't recall coming across bugs or glitches and I don't recall it crashing or freezing.

The solution scales very well. If a company wants to expand, it can do so.

About 100 people in our organization use the solution currently.

Technical support is very helpful and responsive. We have been satisfied with their help.

Positive

We have found the implementation to be pretty straightforward and simple. It is not a difficult or ultimately complex process. I'd rate the experience a three out of five in terms of ease of deployment. I can't remember exactly how long it took to deploy.

You only need about two to three people to handle deployment and maintenance. They handle planning and infrastructure.

I'm working in a personal service company, so I asked my team to handle the implementation process. It was done in-house.

I can't speak to how much the solution costs.

We're Microsoft partners.

I'm using the solution via a third-party application.

We are a professional service company. Our field is information technology. We use a third-party application to make updates.

I'd recommend the solution to others.

I would rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use WSUS on a host in our main data center so that all the Windows and the endpoint updates are downloaded to a central location before being distributed to the endpoints through our local network. The aim is to avoid the endpoint downloading the update directly from the internet and killing the office bandwidth.

This product provides the option to create multiple downstream servers. If the infrastructure is distributed to different sites or different countries, you can create a structure where the upstream server downloads all the updates using the specific internal connection, and then distributes those updates to the downstream servers at a scheduled time when the workload is minimal. 

The interface is not user-friendly. It looks like Windows 98 and it needs a different format, maybe something web-based, or perhaps it's time to rebuild from scratch. It needs to be something that provides clear options and should include an FAQ section to help provide some answers without having to search Google or contact technical support. 

I've been using this solution for about three years. 

This solution delivers updates to the endpoint. We worry about server stability but not the endpoints. If there are any issues we can manage without it functioning at peak level.

The solution is very scalable. You can add servers as needed and add batches of endpoints to it. 

The initial setup is difficult. It's easier if you don't need downstream servers but if you want to do it properly and securely and have the packages distributed without any interference, it's a little bit complex. To configure it from scratch for 1,000 endpoints, can take up to three days.

When purchasing the operating system, WSUS is included in the price of the product.

It's important to monitor bandwidth usage and traffic that might be blocked on the firewalls.

This is a good product and it does its job but it's quite complex to configure, implement, and maintain, and the interface is terrible, so I rate it eight out of 10.

I use Update Services to ensure our server estate remains adequately patched.

The most valuable feature is Server Update's stability.

More integration with different platforms would be an improvement. In the next release, Microsoft should expand on automation.

I've been using this solution for more than ten years.

Server Update is stable.

This solution is scalable.

Microsoft's technical support is fine.

The initial setup was straightforward.

I would recommend Server Update for anyone looking into it and rate it as eight out of ten.

My primary use case of Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is to enforce patching for applications. I act as the client, not the server admin. If, let's say, my laptop has not restarted frequently, this solution will force me to take a couple of minutes to restart. This solution is deployed on cloud, so I'm always using the latest version. 

A valuable feature about this solution is that it enforces an updating and patching process for my applications. 

This solution's deployment could be improved. When I was the admin, there were some problems when deploying to clients. Sometimes the policy is not effective. I guess, more on the reliability side, more reliable means working more often with the clients. It could be easier to deploy. 

I have been using this solution for the duration of time I've been in my company. 

This solution is stable. 

This product is scalable. In my organization, there are about 600,000 people using Microsoft Windows Server. 

I have never contacted Microsoft support. 

I didn't use another patch management solution before Microsoft Windows Server. 

We had a lot of issues during deployment. I remember when we first deployed this solution, it didn't work, so we had to retry, we had to troubleshoot, and then after we finally got it, we could only partially use it. It would be great if the process were more simple so that we could deploy it on the first try to hundreds and thousands of clients. I don't remember the time duration of the installation or how big our deployment team was. 

We implemented through an in-house team. 

For licensing, I think it's on a framework contract. I'd guess my CIO would know, but I didn't buy my license—it's by default on my PC. 

I evaluated BigFix as part of my research, but I haven't used it. 

As an end user, I rate this solution a 10 out of 10. I've had no issues so far. 

I'm not sure if I can recommend this solution because I don't know what the alternatives are, so I have no experience in an alternative solution. It could be the case that BigFix is better. 

In terms of use cases, our clients use this Windows update service to deploy patches and service packs across all their servers and computers.

Once we configure it and it keeps updating the patches, all I need to do is filter out which patches are required or not. First, we test all the patches in a test environment, and if it's successful, we approve it for deployment. That's what I do. It fulfills all the requirements.

It would be good if it could deploy third-party patches or applications.

I have been using this solution for ten years. We are using version 3.0 of the software update service.

I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. 

Scalability is pretty high, so I would rate it a ten out of ten. In our organization, we have three source services and two servers. As for the number of users, it is around the globe, actually. There are more than two thousand users.

The customer service and support team is good. I hardly approached Microsoft for the solution.

Positive

The setup is very easy. One benefit is that it downloads from the internet, and we can select which patches to deploy onto the client computers. The client computers don't need to download it again. 

The initial setup was the easiest thing I've seen with Microsoft. I would rate the setup a ten out of ten. 

Generally, we should do the deployment during the late night hours, and it takes around two to three hours max to deploy it for our set of seven computers.

It is not really expensive. I would rate it one out of ten,  where one is for low pricing and ten is for high pricing. 

It's robust and stable. It provides options to figure out which patches to deploy, when, and how to deploy them silently, depending on the customer or user preferences. These are the best facilities I see in this service.

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

We have more than 200 users in our organization.

We get server updates from the internet and from the Bluetooth server. All of the clients are connected to it, and they're all updated from this exact server. It updates automatically.

We faced issues with updates with some clients, so we have downloaded a patch appliance in those instances.

I have used this solution for nine years.

We haven't had any issues with stability.

The scalability is okay.

Setup is complex. I would rate it as seven out of ten.

For the installation process, we had to install a service from Windows and load the drivers.

The amount of time it takes to deploy will depend on the operating system. It can take from 45 minutes to one hour.

We have the M&A ticketing system, which we use to get information about the clients and issues. It's not difficult to maintain the solution.

I would rate this solution as nine out of ten. I would recommend it.

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is the fact that we can deploy patches from Microsoft security patches and deploy software.

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services could improve by being less cumbersome to use. It's somewhat difficult to use, but we manage to get through it.

I have used Microsoft Windows Server Update Services within the last 12 months.

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is highly stable. It is one of the most stable solutions from Microsoft.

The support was great from Microsoft Windows Server Update Services. When we were implementing it or upgrading it to the version we have now, the representative was able to do a Teams meeting with us and help configure it and create deployment shares. They helped us with everything.

The initial setup of Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is complex.

There is not a lot of maintenance required for the solution. The only thing we do is apply patches and approve patches to deploy. It's fairly easy, we do have a whole team that takes care of it, but the majority is hands-off.

My advice to others is if you are thinking about implementing the solution, I will highly suggest they use the support from Microsoft for the implementation. It requires SQL and needs to run SQL local to the server.

I rate Microsoft Windows Server Update Services an eight out of ten.