You can now download WSUS 3.0 at Microsoft Connect. It looks like the final release of WSUS 3.0 (Windows Server Update Services) is just around the corner. We have been working with Microsoft’s patch management solution since the availability of SUS and were always quite satisfied with it. I never liked its user interface, though.

I’m not a friend of web interfaces, in general. I don’t even like to read my mail using a web browser. The web is great for publishing, but web browsers were not build to run applications and, especially, not as frontends for server management tools. That’s my personal view. So, you can just imagine that I liked to hear that WSUS gets an MMC-based user interface now.

Microsoft says that WSUS also offers improved performance and reliability. However, we did not have problems ever with WSUS 2, with respect to this. We are using WSUS to patch about 550 computers at the moment. So I suppose that the improved performance is only relevant for bigger organizations.

It seems that WSUS 3.0 still lacks one essentials feature, though. It doesn’t allow you to patch third party products. This is the only reason, I can think of, to switch to another patch management solution.

Windows Connected discusses some of WSUS 3.0 UI improvements. Please, also check out the WSUS team blog for more information.

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