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i love Wsus and it works great.
But we ran into issues with Adobe, Firefox, etc non Microsoft patches.
I have got about 400 clients.
I’ve tried shavlik with system center… Too clumsy.
I bought GFI and liked it, then it became logic now, and I had a ton of trouble,and now I’m in a third iteration max focus and the only solution is apparently to uninstall every client manually across all of my network and reinstall it. If I have to go through that level of effort… I’m going to look at a new solution.i haven’t had good patches in almost a year since starting this mess.

Anything out there that works great and is straightforward? I’m ready to just go back to WSUS but I would love to find something great that handles the non Microsoft major patches as well.

Thanks.

@Microsoft

8 Spice ups
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I have switched to running WSUS for the windows products and NINITE for the 3rd party items.

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As stated in a lot of the other threads about this exact same topic.

We use ninite pro for those types of updates etc.

Some others say that PDQ deploy does a good job but i have not tried that one.

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PDQ Deploy Microsoft Windows Server… is what I use for my main office. I use ControlNow for my remote offices, and have had no major issues over the past year. You could also use LUP Local Update Publisher which works with WSUS for 3rd party patches. There are lots of threads in this forum, I suggest taking a look. Tab+Q is your friend.

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Currently using PDQ Deploy, which has the added benefit of being able to package my own updates when it’s not one of the major packages, or something WSUS is having issues pushing out.

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We use SCCM and @Ninite . SCCM pushes out the NiniteOne application to each machine in a dedicated folder and then a scheduled task runs weekly with the /update switch to keep all the machines up to date. Half my work force is remote and not on my LAN which is why I do it that way. And then I rely on the reports generated from Spiceworks to let me know what clients have what versions installed.

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Depends on budget

WSUS and Local Update Publisher combo is excellent and free (apart from Windows License)

WSUS and PDQ Deploy is excellent and not a lot of money at all

Tanium is awesome but will cost you

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Depending on your needs and budget, I’ve been using and been very happy with Desktop Central by @Zoho for a year now.

I posted some information about it to someone else who had Remote Offices involved, but has all the links to the product and comparison matrix that you can look at (and saves me retyping it all):

They do have trials of their different versions, depending on the features you want or need, and even have a free 25 computer version that you can use for an extended period (although it does have limitations such as no Active Directory).

Any questions you have about it @vidya-zoho has always been very helpful no matter what product I had questions about. They do have a bunch of different products as well that I’ve not spent nearly enough time playing around with.

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We spent a lot of time looking for a good answer for the exact same problem. We settled on Vipre since it has patch management built into the AV client. IF you have Group Policies working correctly Vipre is very easy to deploy and control. It typically does a good job in removing other incompatible software (such as a different AV) but you will want to watch your SW scans to ensure you got everything rooted out.

Vipre is typically less expensive than GFI’s suite and has been an independent company since 2013 when GFI spun off the AV side of the world.

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Hi Tom:

Patch management is of course a critical issue; not only for your Windows updates but for the third-party patches as well. WSUS does a great job but is unable to deploy updates from other vendors. Additionally, you want to ensure that those updates have the correct detection logic when performing these patch tasks; we provide all of that logic to you at no additional cost.

Cloud Management Suite is a cloud-based, systems management tool capable of performing MS security, Office, third-party updates as well as Windows hotfixes.

You had mentioned products being ineffective and clumsy; however, CMS was built to excel in most systems management features as well as provide an easy, efficient interface.

If you’re interested, we offer free demonstrations and trials; just let me know!

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Thanks for the mention V_S!

@Thomas, ManageEngine Desktop central is easy and simple to download and set up. There is a free trial period of 30 days and is fully functional. I’d suggest that you give it a try over a few weeks and then decide. Do not hesitate to reach out to me should you need any help.

@ManageEngine

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Another vote for Admin Arsenals PDQ Deploy. Easy to use, and priced just right.

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Same here for the non Microsoft stuff we use Ninite Pro. Simple, full of features, and reasonably priced.

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Local Update Publisher hasn’t been updated in quite awhile now, you should look at WSUS Package Publisher . I’m deploying Flash with it now, and am currently working on getting Java to bend to my will…

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Nice tip, thanks

I will have a look but will admit to being a PDQ user…well my sysadmins are. I just pay the bills and sit in meetings these days;-)

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PDQ is great! I use it daily. WSUS (and LUP) are awesome because it just rolls out updates throughout the Windows Update mechanism, which means nice, slow, and steady.