Comments on: Microsoft WUSes out

By: steve

steve — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 18:51:32 +0000

Oh and MS is teh sux0r
I just had to type that once.
W00T!

By: steve

steve — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 18:48:13 +0000

As someone that did the migration from SUS to WSUS and heard from MS while they were making cracks about WUS during some of their seminars, I can tell you that WSUS is much much better overall. The licensing part is a pain in the butt, I’ll definitely agree to that. I still can’t get any answers from anyone including MS as to whether or not the company I work for is eligible for charitly licensing or not.
It does amuse me to no end some of the issues that I always run across with the stuff from MS that is meant for the masses and doesn’t garner any profit for them directly. Already I have a recurring event log from WSUS that MS doesn’t have a solution to other than “yeah, we know. It’s going to be patched.” Oh the delicious irony of having to patch their patch distributor.
And I too am locked in to a Windows environment due to our software which requires an IE frontend and installed components to interact with a… UNIX proprietary database on the back end. Many many many suggestions and comments to the software company have been made to allow for other browsers to work with it and to allow for the web frontend server to run on something other than Windows Server.

By: site admin

site admin — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 18:38:04 +0000

Stomp away,
I don’t censor (too much)

Thanks for playing.

By: Zak

Zak — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 18:28:39 +0000

Patrick, (err, I assume this is Patrick, given the title of the page)

I actually did find your page while googling for some WSUS tidbit (currently migrating from SUS), but no, I’m not concerned my boss will come across this and come to uncomfortable conclusions.

Forgive me if I came across as an ass–I didn’t quite realize that you were being humorous for the sake of humor (though I should have, given the title of your blog) rather than seriously ranting about WSUS. In our line of work, I come across too many people who do things for religious reasons, instead of simply using the best tool for the job (whatever it may be.) Seeing people acting smugly superior about their choice of OS without looking at all the angles (and in alot of cases, without even understanding WHY other than “all the cool kids are doing it”) is a pet peeve of mine. Again, sorry for stomping on your blog and acting like a dick.

To your response, I’d say you’re dead on–particularly in relation to MS’s licensing. Whenever I have to implement another MS product, I tend to shudder because I know I’m in for a few hours research just to figure out how to legally deploy it.

By the way, I didn’t mean you’d litterally said “MS is teh sux0r,” I was just referring to that particular type of rant.

By: site admin

site admin — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 17:40:02 +0000

Zak,
Thanks for your comments. First let me apologize if this appeared in any way to be a “fair and balanced” review of WSUS. It is not and was not intended to be. In fact, it is based only on the humerous name and the FAQ page. My post was meant to be funny and sarcastic, not informative. I’m not sure how you see people “like me” making your job more difficult. Do I rise too highly in a google search of WSUS? Are you concerned your boss would read my web page as more than it is? Based upon your post here (with the exception of your use of the term “dorking” to describe your Linux experience) you appear to be intelligent enough to make your own search for case studies and evidence supporting whichever solution you choose.

My use of MS software is as yours is purported to be: required due to installed software. My use of Linux (or GNU/Linux) is based upon my bad experiences with MS software and excellent experiences with Linux based OSs.

MS technologically cripples their OSs to support their licensing structure. Activation - if you don’t have an enterprise license - multiple versions of their server OSs some which fight with each other in an obsessed Highlander, “there can be only one,” fashion based upon what you thought you needed and originally purchased. If you figured wrong - or worse your boss bought what someone else convinced him he needed - then you get to fight with servers in a convoluted dance to replace one Highlander server with another equally Highlanderish machine while trying to preserve your data. I could go on, but you already know most of what I would write.

Finally, I challenge you to find anywhere that I have ever written “MS is teh sux0r”.