Microsoft Windows Update Services (the successor to Software Update Services) looks to have slipped into 2005. In an e-mail sent from Microsoft to registered users for the Windows Update Services Open Evaluation Program, Microsoft state that:

“There are two primary drivers behind this schedule change:

• The March release of the Windows Update Services closed beta has spurred overwhelming interest from customers and partners evaluating the product. We have assessed this input as part of the beta cycle, and are committed to incorporating the feedback before releasing the next beta release for the Windows Update Services Open Evaluation Program.
• The Windows Update Services team is developing a new Automatic Updates agent which will be included in XPSP2. The new agent is used both to improve the updating experience for XPSP2 users connecting directly to Windows Update and for users who will leverage Windows Update Services in their corporate environments in the future.

This decision to include the new Automatic Updates technology in XPSP2, and perform the necessary integration and testing, also contributes to the development schedule for Windows Update Services being staggered behind the XPSP2 release.”

Another interesting note in the e-mail is that:

“The final production release of Windows Update Services will include a migration toolkit that will simplify the migration from Software Update Services (SUS) 1.0 with SP1 to Windows Update Services, so if you are holding off on implementing SUS because of concerns about migrating to Windows Update Services, we encourage you to go ahead and implement SUS 1.0 with SP1”.

For further information on Windows Update Services, including a Windows Update Services (Beta Version) datasheet, refer to the Windows Update Services area on the Microsoft website.