Best way to deploy SP2...

[Guest]

Hello all,

I am a newbie network admin for a small company with about 40 workstations.
All but about 5 of these run Windows XP (the others run Win2K) and we are
planning on upgrading to Service Pack 2 soon. Our main server is running SBS
2003.

I am currently researching the best practices to deploy the upgrade, and I'm
having trouble deciding between pushing an update out via Group Policy or
simply making a network drive and creating a batch file to run the XPsp2.exe
file. One question I have is would I be able to do an unattended install of
SP2 through the group policy, or is this only possible by executing the
command? Also, how will this affect the 5 or so PCs running Windows 2000?
Will the policy ignore them since they aren't running XP, or would this cause
a problem?

I apologize if these questions seem like common sense; as I said I only
recently became an admin and am still "learning the ropes" so to speak. Any
advice on this would be greatly appreciated. I am leaning more towards using
group policy, but not if it would compromise the Windows 2000 workstations.

Thanks in advance,
Wayne

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Wayne

Before working out how to get SP2 to all computers by using the line of
least resistance, have you tried SP2 out on one computer just to make sure
that SP2 will not prevent some company activities?..

 

[Guest]

Yes.. I had to install one of them with SP2 because we didn't have the
regular XP CD (this company uses that Microsoft Action Pack thingie for all
of its computers.. no volume licenses) and there were no problems with it.

 

[Henners]

Isnt the Action pack only for eval use?

Yes.. I had to install one of them with SP2 because we didn't have the
regular XP CD (this company uses that Microsoft Action Pack thingie for
all
of its computers.. no volume licenses) and there were no problems with it.

 

[Guest]

I honestly have no idea.. I did not set up the licensing or the network.
They assured me that they're legit, so I just follow orders.

 

[Guest]

SP2 will resolve any licence questions..so don't worry. If licence isn't
valid..no SP2 install.

To be on the safe side..unless every PC is identical in every way, I'd put
SP2 on a shared network drive and then run the update manually on each PC.

It is a bit time consuming, however it will ensure that you do not suddenly
have dozens of dead computers all over the office.

The upgrade will check for incompatibilities prior to installation.