Lawrence Garvin - Making you wish you never asked a question?

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• Sunday, January 20, 2013 6:39 PM

   

   
  

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  This forum is a fantastic resource for fixing wsus problems. I've not had to ask many questions because a search of this forum has answered everything I've needed to know, and most often by Laurence. I don't care if he's rude or not, I've never really noticed. What I care about is there's someone here who knows the product inside out and has taken the time to post very detailed and informative responses to most of the issues you'll encounter as a wsus administrator. 

  'educating the users' to patch is a terrible solution, you've let yourself and your users down. I'd say it's not MS who need to have a think. 

  PS: He doesn't even work at MS IIRC, doesn't he work for Solarwinds?

  • Edited by Simon Quirk Sunday, January 20, 2013 6:41 PM
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• Tuesday, January 22, 2013 1:17 AM

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  So I'm a little old IT bloke looking after 2 WSUS servers at 2 different companies,

  Can I assume from this arrangement, that for at least one of those companies, you are not an employee, but rather a paid consultant?

  Mr G, you do realise that our lives as IT admins in this day and age don't revolve around one specific piece of software dont you?

  Absolutely!

  So the SBS Server is having WSUS removed as its more trouble than its worth,

  I totally agree. The SBS team has made a colossal screw-up of WSUS when installed on SBS, and I've been recommending for years to uninstall WSUS from SBS and install it on its own standalone instance of Windows Server.

  you do realise that an SME in current times can't afford to have the level of specialism that you seem to expect, and when someone demonstrates they don't have this level, you mocking them is deeply insulting.

  If, by SME, you mean Small/Medium Enterprises, then no -- I don't expect high levels of product specialization when most of those organizations are being staffed with IT generalists with only a few years of work experience. 

  However, I don't believe I have ever mocked somebody for their lack of knowledge. If you'd care to post links to those places where you believe I have mocked anybody (you, or others) for a lack of knowledge, I'll be quite happy to review those postings with an exceptionally open mind, including posting an apology if warranted.

  There is one exception to that statement -- that applies in this forum -- I do have a very short fuse for "patch administrators" who don't understand the basics of how to patch a Windows PC, and I'm sure that general disappointment has seeped through in my posts from time to time as well.

  I will, also, be quite happy to acknowledge that I have probably been very pointed with some people for their apparent lack of effort in addressing a situation or their propensity to blame the software (or others) rather than acknowledge their own lack of knowledge or expertise. (You do seem to be one of those persons inclined to blame the software when things don't go perfectly.) Of course, in your case it would be impossible for me to actually know, or not know, since you've chosen to hide behind an alias -- one I presume we will never hear from again except in this thread.

  I also loathe IT Directors/Managers who assign "patch management" to the most junior admin on the staff, because they, in their own ignorance, view patch management as "shit duty", when, in fact, it is one of the most important systems administration tasks in the entire organization, and requires an in-depth understanding of a cross-functional set of skills, so as to not screw something up in the process of deploying patches (or failing to deploy patches, as the case may be). I also have a major challenge with any "professional", who having been assigned a work task, fails to exercise the appropriate due diligence to understand the proper way to perform that task, and how to use the tools required to perform that task.

  I also get particularly annoyed at people, who after asking for help and being given explicit guidance on how to get usable information to help diagnose the problem and arrive at an intelligent solution -- go off and do what they want to do anyway (quite often making the problem even more convoluted than it was in the first place). Yes, I've probably been a bit too transparent about those type of annoyances, also.

  As Simon notes, I do not work for Microsoft, and to clarify your inquiry -- I have nothing whatsoever to do with the design or building of the product. The product is what it is -- a free piece of software, designed over a half-dozen years ago for a version of Windows Server and IIS three revisions earlier than the current generation of server software -- and it does require some knowledge, skills, expertise, and effort to use and maintain.

  My purpose in this forum is to identify the proper and correct solutions for the problems presented by persons who post to this forum. Sometimes that requires objectively (and even strongly) pointing out where assumptions and practices (or the lack thereof) are contributing to the problem, as well as when certain attempted solutions have made things worse than they were. Some people don't like that. I'm here to help those that want help. This is a purpose I chose for myself; nobody assigned it to me, and I'm entitled to my personal opinions, and the right to express them. My presence here is purely voluntary. Frankly (and this probably a great example of the "rude behavior" you cite in your post) -- I don't really have a lot of time, or sympathy, for hyper-sensitive sysadmins who are more interested in people "being nice" rather than "being helpful", and these days I'm more likely to ignore the posts from such persons than actually respond to them at all.

  In my recent observations, there seems to be a general propensity in many of today's IT Professionals to just "throw mud at the wall" when a problem is encountered, and hope that some of it sticks, rather than identifying what specifically is the problem, and performing the proper steps to remediate the problem. There's a misguided belief that throwing mud is faster than analyzing the problem. Sometimes the only thing that comes from throwing mud at the wall is covering up the only window, leaving you working in the dark -- and even if some of it sticks and solves the problem, you still have a lot of mud to clean up. (It's also worth noting that a fair number of problems are caused by other people's "mud"!)

  Physicians have a mantra: "First, do no harm." It would be good for IT Professionals to consider that same philosophy. Consultants, exponentially so. Failing to do so belies the use of the word "professional" in the job title.

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  Lawrence Garvin, M.S., MCITP:EA, MCDBA, MCSA
  SolarWinds Head Geek
  Microsoft MVP - Software Distribution (2005-2012)
  My MVP Profile: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Lawrence.Garvin
  The views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of SolarWinds.

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• Monday, April 08, 2013 7:42 PM

   

   
  

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  I've read several of your responses Mr. G and you definitely come off as a d-bag.  Sorry if that offends you but I'm just using the same brutal honestly you do when you "help" people while demeaning their intelligence.  So while you may be an expert in WSUS, you're entry-level when it comes to people skills.
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• Monday, April 08, 2013 11:43 PM

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  Hi Alex,

  I'm the Program Manager for WSUS. Actually, Lawrence doesn't work for Microsoft at all. We did offer him a MVP award in part for the amazing amount of help that he offers on these forums. Offering all that help must be a bit stressful, which might explain some of the "edge" in his comments. If you're willing to dig a little around here, at your own risk, and stomach what you come across, you'll probably find that Lawrence has already answered most of your questions already. If you are looking for more personalized, professional support, I would suggest calling Microsoft directly. And if Microsoft has ever let you down, please visit my WSUS blog at http://blogs.technet.com/b/wsus and use the "Contact Blog Author" link in the right-hand side to contact me directly. I'll do what I can to set things right.

  Thanks,
  Ben Herila (WSSC PM, Windows Server)

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• Tuesday, April 09, 2013 12:11 PM

   

   
  

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  So I'm a little old IT bloke looking after 2 WSUS servers at 2 different companies,  one on SBS 2003,  one on 2003 R2,   both,  in the last 3 months have decided to fail spectacularly.

  So I look on the internet for help, I search for the error codes I find, I usually,  via our friend Google end up here,  and I usually end up reading the pious self righteous and thoroughly annoying postings of Mr Garvin,   now he may well be the world authority on WSUS,  he may write the books,  he may infact have written the utterly unstable software,  but really friend,  is there any need to be such a potent example of all that is wrong with IT these days?

  I’d highly recommend to Microsoft that they review the validity of using this guy as the main exponent of WSUS on here,  I’m sure some will find him charming and helpful,  but,  when I’m trying to fix a core part of Microsoft’s networking infrastructure that’s failing to work,  having to trudge through pages of the mans mocking,  condescending posting is sucking my will to carry on with WSUS.

  ...

  Just my view,  but MS....if you’re out there,  have a think hey?
  

  I'm stunned. I'm stunned that someone would anonymously post such a misdirected rant, and I want to back up Simon's post supporting Lawrence.

  But firstly, just to help you spot where you're wrong.  You've managed to direct your rant at the one person that consistently gives good advice about how to fix WSUS problems.  This is the guy that doesn't work for Microsoft, and probably was in the same situation as you at one stage, and he gives his time to come in here and help people solve WSUS problems.  He's solved a few for me.

  If you really want to rant, why not rant at Microsoft?  They are the ones that apparently refuse to resource this forum with any paid WSUS experts. In fairness, they provide WSUS for free, but considering how much SMEs pay for Microsoft, I think their patching software should be free.  But any anger you feel at lack of support should be directed towards MS.

  You're clearly frustrated at the recent failures of WSUS and you're probably getting it in the neck at work.  And you'd really prefer to go on to the next problem.  I get that.  We're all in the same boat.

  But just because somone is stern online, or expresses understandable frustration at people that are too lazy to RTFM, doesn't give you the right to say that he's ranting or mocking.  You're just wrong.  And it especially doesn't give you the right to arrive at this forum, a place that's important and helpful to me, and pi$$ off the one guy that's actually in here helping people.

  Can't you just accept the fact that a busy guy that's volunteering responses on a forum expects the people asking the questions to RTFM, provide enough information to solve the problem and not just 'ask the interwebs for the answer'?

  I think you owe him an apology.

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