How do you know which "critical" issues are real and which aren't?
- As the single IT person for a small law firm, I am responsible not only for the general technological welfare of my network and users, but I am also responsible for legal case support documents, web-presence, etc.
So, needless to say, I cherish any tools that becomes available to make my job easier or to help me determine if I am on the right track. Tools like the Best Practices Analyzer promised to help, but I have repeatedly found them to be riddled with errors. In fact, I ran the SBSBPA software the other day after repeated occurrences of the dreaded BSOD after inadvertently approving a Critical Microsoft Driver Update that disable my RAID controller and rendered my remaining drives useless because they were formatted for dynamic volumes, not simple.
So, my network isn't working, my exchange server is crashed, I can't get the DTC service to load, SharePoint is in various states of disrepair and to be honest, I don't think I could break anything else without pouring a soda directly onto the Motherboard.
Great time to run the BPA.
You will be glad to know that the only thing it could find was a poorly configured DNS entry for my Remote Desktop Telnet Gateway service. When I asked MS Tech support why I got this error and nothing more (even though my server was a wreck!), he said, "oh, don't worry about that error, we've known about it for a long time--it's just a bug--you can safely ingore that error." I have heard that a dozen times with SBS2008 and various BPA apps.
Even the "Critical Errors" you get in the SBS2008 console aren't really "critical" (that is unless you install them). I'm at wits ends and I just don't trust any of these tools Microsoft offers to support IT Professionals. So, how do you decide which critical updates are really critical ? How do you keep from getting overwhelmed and dissilusioned by the ineffective and bug-ridden tools you are given to trouble shoot these updates?
Any suggestions or comments would be great. Thanks for reading this, I look forward to your reply.
Jase
All Replies
I appreciate all the comments of support and commiseration and I am glad to know that I am the only person in this forum to have any frustration with the notion that it's okay to just ignore some critical errors and it's not okay to ignore others. It's more than just the fact that there are two kinds of critical errors: it's that there is no reference as to which require action and which can be safely ignored.
Furthermore, the exhuastive discussion of how you determine which critical updates or errors need to be addressed and which can be ignored is just about more than I can handle.
Just in case you are trying to decide if this post is serious enough to warrant a reply about what a nasty person I am for being so sarcastic, it's okay to skip this one...though this post is critical, it's not the kind of critical that requires any interaction on your part. In fact, I am just posting this for fun, so please don't get your tail feathers ruffled.
As always, with honest sincerity, thanks for making this forum/newsgroup possible and for all of the generous contributions from other users. And again, please don't mistake my attempt at humor for an act of malice.Implementing ITIL?
I think you are doing great!
Your infrastructure sounds to be standardized.
Just analyze the log files before applying the patches and updates.
- Hi Jase,
I was just researching the latest security bulletin updates too. Of all the available guidances, here's what I found to be especially helpful for deployment planning purposes
What's especially nice are the charts that break down each bulletin: http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2009/10/13/october-2009-security-bulletin-release.aspx
And then for added guidance, they just came out with this document that helps make the whole process a little less complex: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c3d986d0-ecc3-4ce0-9c25-048ec5b52a4f&displaylang=en
Best,
Annie - I have a spare ZX Spectum and it still works and it's very relyable indeed. So dont give up until the fat lady sings.
- Ehr! are you sure?
