Microsoft Ends Development of Windows Server Update Services (bleepingcomputer.com) 17
joshuark shares a report: Microsoft has officially announced that Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) is now deprecated, but plans to maintain current functionality and continue publishing updates through the channel. This move isn't surprising, as Microsoft first listed WSUS as one of the "features removed or no longer developed starting with Windows Server 2025" on August 13. In June, the company also revealed that it would also soon deprecate WSUS driver synchronization.
While new features and development for WSUS will cease, Microsoft said today that it plans to continue supporting the service's existing functionality and updates, which will still be distributed, even after deprecation. "Specifically, this means that we are no longer investing in new capabilities, nor are we accepting new feature requests for WSUS," Microsoft's Nir Froimovici said on Friday. "However, we are preserving current functionality and will continue to publish updates through the WSUS channel. We will also support any content already published through the WSUS channel."
While new features and development for WSUS will cease, Microsoft said today that it plans to continue supporting the service's existing functionality and updates, which will still be distributed, even after deprecation. "Specifically, this means that we are no longer investing in new capabilities, nor are we accepting new feature requests for WSUS," Microsoft's Nir Froimovici said on Friday. "However, we are preserving current functionality and will continue to publish updates through the WSUS channel. We will also support any content already published through the WSUS channel."
Rent seeking (Score:2, Insightful)
The replacement is various "cloud-based" services. Among those, the ones that offer any degree of control over deployment have fees.
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Not just rent seeking, but actively trying to tie all Windows servers into the Azure infrastructure so the cost of moving to somewhere else will be so high no one will do it. It'll make no sense to the accountants to pay for AWS or Oracle cloud services and then still have to pay Azure to do any server management.
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To some extent true, and the problem will be when WSUS can't fetch more updates.
However for many large companies the WSUS service is essential for the inner networks that have to be protected from direct internet access at almost any cost, so those systems will have to resort to pure manual patching or go unpatched instead.
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and for envs where internet is not directly open? (Score:3)
and for envs where internet is not directly open? or limited bandwidth?
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I've set up apt-mirror sites for the this reason; WSUS would fill the same niche.
I guess if the Internet is already firewalled you're at less risk running unpatched Windows. But not against Stuxnet-types.
Microsoft can lose those sites to Linux and still make more money by enslaving the vast majority of sites to subscription-fee updates.
Remember - never make your business wholely reliant on any other single business. They don't care about you.
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and for envs where internet is not directly open? or limited bandwidth?
Presumably, those environments would continue to use wsus since TFS [slashdot.org] made a point of saying that wsus isn't going away.
It was dead to me over 15 years ago (Score:1)
Intune (Score:2)
It's all about Intune revenue. Much more difficult to setup and manage, but much more profitable to Microsoft.
Please explain (Score:2)
This is a question for the IT experts, as I am not in the industry. My question is based on my observations as an outsider.
Back in the 1990's and into the early 2000's, it seemed to me that MS was the upstart parasite in the "big boys" britches. Windows Server was trying to worm itself into corporate computing, trying to displace Unix and similar systems that had reigned for quite a long time. Rightly or wrongly, sadly or happily, GUI Windows took over in the corporate world, and MS got especially rich h
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Thank you - very insightful answer. It confirms my non-expert impressions that I get from "reading between the lines" of what the pros talk about here on Slashdot.
Azure Arc? (Score:2)
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You might well be able to do it for less than the quoted monthly cost by deliberately keeping ARC machines out of the scope of management, as defined for billing purposes for everything but patch Tuesday, and handling the update logic yourself against the REST API, but you'd still get hit for at least a day per server that way; and if you are going to futz with that could probably just enable SSH or powershell remoting an
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