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To Update or Not To Update
June 03, 2008 03:33 PM | AutomationMichael Flores, Workstation Technician
With the release of Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1, our attention once again falls to Windows Updates and the question, “should I be updating my system?” We approach this from two angles, public systems and staff systems. I will talk about each of these and the impact of Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1.
Staff Systems are typically not setup with automatic windows updates as they sometimes tend to cause more confusion and software problems than they help. We do update systems as we do repairs or during maintenance visits. The impact of Windows Service Pack 3 or Windows Vista Service Pack 1 on these systems should be minor.
Public Systems are typically configured with the MS Shared Computer Toolkit or Windows Steady State and are set to automatically update themselves with only critical updates. Since Windows Service Pack 3 is not a critical update yet and requires user intervention it shouldn’t update to Service Pack 3. Also systems using the MS Shared Computer Toolkit are not compatible with Windows XP Service Pack 3 and will not auto-update themselves. As we move forward with maintenance visits we will be upgrading systems with new images using Steady State that will be pre-loaded with Windows XP Service Pack 3 or Windows Vista Service Pack 1, depending on the operating system.
