Essentials Update Management Configuration

Applies To: System Center Essentials 2010

Before you use System Center Essentials 2010 to deploy software and critical updates in your IT environment, you must first configure some core update management settings. The Essentials 2010 Update Management Configuration Wizard will walk you through the necessary configuration steps.

To configure update management settings

1. When the Introduction page of the Update Management Configuration Wizard appears, click Next to begin. Select the Do not show this page again box if you want to skip the introduction the next time you launch the wizard.

   Tip

   Update management settings can be changed later by clicking the Administration button in the Essentials console and clicking Configure update management settings under Microsoft Updates in the Administration Overview pane.

2. On the Proxy Server page, if you do not use a proxy server to connect to the Internet, leave the setting at No, and then click Synchronize. If you do use a proxy server, click Yes, complete the required fields as described below, and then click Synchronize.

   • Server name—Choose between HTTP or HTTPS, and then type the proxy server domain name in the text box.

   • Port number—Type the port number to use for the proxy in the text box.

   Select the check box to specify an account with permission to connect to the proxy server, if required. Type the user name and password in the text boxes, select the domain to which the user account belongs, and then click OK to save and apply the changes.

3. After synchronization is complete, the Products page will be displayed. You will be prompted to choose whether to have Essentials automatically download updates, or you can manually specify which updates should be downloaded. To ensure that managed computers stay secure, we strongly recommend that you keep the default setting of Automatically to let Essentials determine the required updates based on scans of your environment. If you decide to manually specify which products to update, click Manually, select one of the options described below, and then click Next.

   • Download updates for Operating Systems only—If you choose this option, Essentials will only download updates for Microsoft operating systems.

   • I will choose products from the list below—If you choose this option, you have to manually select the Microsoft products from the list for which Essentials should download updates.

4. On the Update Languages page, click Yes to download updates based on the locale of the Essentials server, or click No to select which languages to synchronize, and then click Next.

5. On the Classifications page, click Yes to download only critical, security, and service pack updates from Microsoft, or click No to select the classifications of updates to synchronize, and then click Next.

6. On the Synchronization page, specify the time of day, and select the number of synchronizations per day to check for new updates from Microsoft Update, and then click Next.

   Important

   If you chose to automatically download Microsoft updates based on your environment as recommended, the Synchronize manually option will not be available. Synchronization will begin 30 minutes after the specified time.

7. On the Summary page, review the configured settings. Select the Synchronize updates when this wizard closes check box to run synchronization for the first time after the wizard is complete, and then click Finish.

   Note

   First-time synchronization can be very resource-intensive and may take several hours to complete, depending on your configuration settings.

Essentials 2010 uses Group Policy to configure the Windows Update agent to receive updates from the Essentials management server. These settings apply to all computers managed by Essentials unless you create a new Group Policy object (GPO) to customize the update management settings. Instructions on how to create and apply customized Windows Update settings using a new GPO are in “Update Management” of the Essentials 2010 Operations Guide. The default update settings used by Essentials are shown in the table below.