Announcement: SMS Scan Tools Are Being Retired
[Today's post is provided by Yvette O'Meally ]
On April 12 th , 2011 SMS 2.0 will reach the end of its extended support lifecycle . At that time, the Security Update Inventory Tool (SUIT) or Extended Security Update Inventory Tool (ESUIT) for SMS 2.0 and SMS 2003 will be retired and will no longer be available for download. Updated catalogs will not be provided after that date.
You are encouraged to begin planning your upgrade to Configuration Manager 2007 to deploy Software Updates . For customers remaining on SMS 2003 SP3 the Inventory Tool for Microsoft Updates (ITMU) is also an option.
Why Upgrade?
The SMS 2.0 SUS Feature Pack and the SMS 2003 Scan Tools ship the Office Update Inventory Tool (OUIT) to scan for Office products. The Office Detection Tool, the scan engine and catalog for OUIT, was deprecated on July 2009 . Without upgrading you cannot scan for Security Updates on Microsoft Office products.
In addition, the Security Update Inventory Tool (SUIT) that is based on the MBSA 1.2 scan engine and catalog, does not support Internet Explorer 7 or later. The Extended Security Update Inventory Tool (ESUIT) is also affected. These tools and their limited scope of application can cause a risk to an organization if they are utilized as a scanning and update validation resource. Microsoft recommends a migration to more recent tools for your environment such as System Center Configuration Manager 2007 for Software Updates or the ITMU for SMS 2003 customers. Note that SMS 2003 mainstream support ended in January 2010, and SMS 2003 is currently in extended support.
In summary, the SMS 2003 Scan Tools and the SMS 2.0 SUS Feature Pack do not support the following:
- SQL Server, MSDE, or Windows MSDE
- Internet Explorer 7 or later
- 64-bit Applications
- Windows Vista or later
- Microsoft Office
Will You Lose any Scan Capabilities Upgrading to ITMU or Configuration Manager?
The following products will not be supported using the latest software update tools because they are not published into Microsoft Update:
- BizTalk 2000 which reaches end of life on July 2011
- BizTalk 2002 which reaches end of life July 2012
- Commerce Server 2002 which reaches end of life July 2013
Administrators deploying security updates to these products can continue to use the legacy catalogs until April 12 th , 2011, and then will need to deploy the hotfixes using Software Distribution. Administrators should still upgrade to ITMU for deploying security updates to all other products.
Administrators who are considering upgrading to Configuration Manager 2007 should note that the legacy scan tools are not supported. We recommend you use Software Distribution for the products above after upgrading.
How Can I Deploy Security Updates using Software Distribution?
Guidance can be found at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc917507.aspx . This was written for SMS 2003 but the same steps will work for Configuration Manager 2007.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights.