Deployment

The compliance assessment data is then used to determine which software updates are required on client computers. When you create a software update deployment with the Deploy Software Updates Wizard, as described later in this chapter, the software updates in the deployment are downloaded from the location specified on the Download Location page of the wizard to the configured package source, if they haven’t been downloaded already. When the wizard finishes,  deployment policy is added to the machine policy for the site. The updates are then copied from the package source to the shared folders on the distribution points set up in the package, where they will be available for clients.

When a client in the target collection of the deployment receives the machine policy, the software update client component starts an evaluation scan. Updates that are still required on the client are then added to a class in Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). Any updates that are mandatory deployments are downloaded as soon as possible from the distribution point to the local cache on the client. The updates in the optional deployment category are not downloaded until they are manually started. If an optional deployment has a deadline that makes it mandatory, the client will download the update as soon as it registers the change in deployment status.

If the client can’t find the location of the distribution point through Location Services (via requests of the management point), it will keep trying to find a distribution point for up to 5 days before it stops. If the client can’t connect to the distribution point to which it has been referred as a source of the software updates in order to download the updates, it will try for up to 10 days before it stops trying. When you start updates manually, the client will try every hour for each distribution point for up to 4 hours before it fails.

When an update deployment has a deadline that becomes available for deployment on a client, the Available Software Update icon will show up in the notification area to tell a user that the deadline is coming up. By default, these display notifications will show up on a periodic basis until all mandatory updates have been installed. They will be displayed every 48 hours for deadlines more than 24 hours away, every 4 hours for deadlines less than 24 hours away, and every 15 minutes for deadlines less than an hour away.

Just imagine the phone calls you’d get if you left things that way! Fortunately, Microsoft has given you the option to turn these notifications off with the client agent settings that let you hide all software update deployments from users. This setting doesn’t affect regular Software Deployment settings, but it will keep display notifications, notification area icons, and software update installation progress boxes from appearing at all. However, this will also mean that you can send out only mandatory software update deployments to your clients. We recommend doing this anyway because users will more than likely delay deployments until they become mandatory.

Unless you hide your update deployments, users will be able to open the Express/Advanced dialog box to start up the installation of all mandatory software updates at once. They will also be able to open the Available Software Updates dialog box, where they can choose to install whatever is available.

When the deadline passes on a mandatory update, a scan will start on the client to make sure that the updates are still required; the local client cache will be checked to make sure the updates are still available, and then the updates will be started. When that is done, another scan will start to make sure that the updates are no longer required on the client. Finally, a state message is sent to the management point saying that the updates are now installed.