Toolkit to Temporarily Block Delivery of Windows XP SP2

It appears Microsoft has released a fix for the upcoming, impending doom on Corporate America. There has been a lot of huff in the press lately about companies not ready for SP2 and how dare Microsoft put out a patch that will be released as an Automatic Update. To all of these companies I say the following, "If you are relying on Automatic Updates for your patch management strategy, take what you can get". I only say this because Microsoft has provided all kinds of free utilities that are available and you don't need to be an IP professional to use them or understand them. One such tool for small businesses would be SUS (Software Update Services) Server, along with some great peer-to-peer support sites like SUSServer.com. If you are adverse to using software by Microsoft to update Microsoft software (if that even makes sense), you can use Shavlik's HFNetChkPro which is free for like up to 50 users. If you are a large corporation, you should be using a patch management tool like Microsoft SMS, Shavlik's HFNetChkPro, St. Bernard's Update Expert and the list goes on and on... Of course there are some exceptions to this little rant of mine, if you have remote offices, field branches, etc it is understandable for those machines to use Automatic Updates.

That being said, if you truely are using Automatic Updates and you do not want to let SP2 install itself, go to this page and follow the instructions, get the file and get cracking cause you only have about a week before SP2 is released to the Automatic Updates stream for the home users to get taken over, er, I mean secured. Download details: Toolkit to Temporarily Block Delivery of Windows XP SP2 to a PC Through Automatic Updates and Windows

Thanks for sticking with me through my little bitch session! Till next time, keep your computer under lock and key and you won't have to worry about this stuff anyway!