@DenisKelley said:

As you probably are aware, you just setup a different Group Policy for those PCs you wish to test.

No I'm not, can you explain? What I have done is setup different groups within WSUS - one for Accounts dept, one for Sales dept and one for everyone else. That way I can approve for Accounts dept first, and then assuming that goes well, I can approve for Sales dept and then everyone else. So I'm staggering the installations, so that if there is a problem, I only have to deal with a handful of PCs rather than every PC.

One thing I'm not sure about with this process is how I should approve updates for other departments once I've approved for Accounts dept. How do I view which updates have been approved only for Accounts, so that I can then select them and approve for other users?

You can probably tell I'm a newbie when it comes to WSUS.

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@ajstringham said:

part of me wants to add an 8th to round out the number.

Do that and the next thing you'll want is to make it a round ten.

Too much

Handbags at dawn. Ignore it and move on before you both look even more silly.

Regarding WSUS. I don't find it the easiest system to install and manage. For SMBs with little in-house IT expertise it does seem like overkill. I'd like something simpler, but having nothing is perhaps too far the other way.

In terms of the listed advantages of WSUS:

Bandwidth: a decent proxy server will cache the downloads anyway, I believe, so this might not be an issue.

Reporting: a decent antivirus/security system will normally report on Windows updates and list any clients that haven't installed critical updates. And this is normally more user friendly that WSUS.

Testing: do people really test updates? How common is this. I'd never find the time. Updates are released weekly, so you'd be testing constantly. And there are loads and loads of updates. Plus, by having a testing strategy in place, you are delaying the roll-out of updates. For critical security updates, this is leaving your systems exposed to zero-day threats. Isn't the risk of having an unpatched system greater than the risk of an update breaking a system? There was an IE update recently that broke our ERP system and I was advised in advance by the ERP vendor not to install it so I configured WSUS accordingly. But this left me in a dilemma, the ERP vendor was effectively dictating that we run IE unpatched and this is not a good place to be. What should you do in this scenario? Or do you release all critical updates and just test non-critical ones?

So generally, I use WSUS and authorise all updates for client PCs without doing any testing. Nothing generally gets broken, and if it did there's normally a way of uninstalling the update or otherwise working around the problem. I'm more lax when it comes to servers. Too lax, and I need to step it up, it's a big weakness of mine.

@Dashrender said:

@Bill-Kindle Yeah I've done that. I logged in as that user on the machine, made the drive mapping, logged out, tried the service and fail.

with the /persistent flag?

@g.jacobse said:

Suggestions on the proper connection (feels like a N00B)

Ditch O365 and switch to on-premise Exchange?

I was reading in yesterday's paper about deep fried pizza, which I hadn't heard of before.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/24/deep-fried-pizza-just-like-make-in-naples

The dry-fry method also discussed in the article is similar to how I cook pizza at home. I start the pizza in a cast-iron frying pan on the stove and then finish it in a very hot oven (not under the grill) for five minutes. I've had rows on food forums about pizza before that would make a Spiceworks RAID 5 discussion seem tame. My cousin now has an outdoor, wood-fired oven that cost thousands and has made me very jealous. I've yet to be invited to try it though.

I like to ask around for help and advice wherever I can get it. I generally try and only select IT suppliers based on personal recommendations. But I have found that other IT people can be a bit cagey and unwilling to discuss their businesses. I suspect this is a fear of looking silly, like @scottalanmiller calling me weird for buying Meraki, or @JaredBusch telling me I sound like a media person not IT, or just shyness. But I have no qualms about looking silly these days.

I know a few one man band IT managers that don't go on any forums or go to seminars or really talk to any of their peers in the industry - they appear to operate in a vacuum. I couldn't imagine working like that.

We used to run a user group for our ERP system, and it was a game just getting people to turn up. A forum was setup and hardly anyone would use it. People seem to prefer to figure things out for themselves, rather than asking the advice of someone who has been through it all before. Madness.

Update:

Meraki messed me around a bit so in the end I've bought a 3 pack of Ubiquiti Pro's to play with, and assuming they're as good as you all say I'll be rolling them out throughout the company.

@scottalanmiller said:

Kind of like what American Pizza is in Europe. They make things called "American" that no American has ever eaten. Pizza with French fries on it? Who eats that? Americans would be so confused.

I've never ever seen or heard of that. Sounds disgusting. I'd have assumed an American pizza is thick crust (which I'd probably call a Chicago pizza), whilst an Italian one is thin crust?

@scottalanmiller said:

Or Café Americano, it's a style of coffee effectively unavailable in the US.

It's a diluted espresso. Do you not drink that or is your coffee always filtered?

@Dashrender said:

Also, the new license is essentially an OEM license, i.e. you can't move it to another device - ever! once the computer you install it on dies/is replaced, so does the license. While I don't have a specific issue with this, it can been seen as a significant price increase.

I believe MS backtracked on that and you can now move it to another device.

But it's totally unmanageable for anything other than tiny environments. To the degree that I would say the low cost version is no longer available.

Trying to stay cool in the office and keep my productivity levels up - I'm struggling. It's hot here and we've no air-con, just a fan which is hardly doing anything. In an hour I'm off to celebrate my colleague's 40th birthday in a nice beer garden somewhere, so it's not all bad. Especially as he's driving.

OK. sure. It's still a substantial price rise to go from Office 2010 H&B to Office 2013 Standard Volume Licence, and you could install the former on two computers. So my point remains, it's not "a pretty natural price increase", it's the killing of a low-cost product.

@scottalanmiller said:

@Carnival-Boy said:

@scottalanmiller I don't call $432 to rent something for 3 years versus $169 to own it forever "a pretty natural price increase". It's a huge price increase.

Those aren't comparable prices. One includes ten installation rights (five stationary, five mobile), the full Pro Plus suite, remote use rights (Office Online Sharepoint Option) and all upgrades plus online storage and promises of new features.

They're comparable if you don't want or need all the additional functionality. If I'm buying a TV package specifically to watch football, the fact that the cable company bundles in 30 extra non-sport channels compared with the satellite company is irrelevant because I only watch football.

On the other issue, Finance Directors are often head of IT and should have an excellent knowledge of it. I also have a strong financial background, despite working in an IT role. So my relationship with my boss (the Finance Director) on IT projects is one of a partnership based on mutual respect and we generally come to decisions jointly (albeit he outranks me so can overrule). I've never thought of it as "I'm IT - you're finance".

I've just signed up for O365 small business. Prior to that I used Hotmail (old skool) and just set up forwarding of all my various personal domains to my Hotmail account. I didn't see any valid reason to wait for the new plans to come out - I expect the transition to be easy.

@Robin5170 said:

The biggest thing I have noticed current general MSPs providing manufacturers is that they are not aware or do not understand the impact and therefore priority of different areas of a factory/site.

That's interesting. What kind of things do you mean?

@Dashrender said:

Eh?

New plans are out in October which will effectively cut the cost of the Midsize business plan to $12.50 (now named Business Premium). This is what most SMBs will be getting. Yeah, it's still more than H&B, but that's no longer an option unless you're a tiny business. So the choice is $90 per year or LibreOffice. I'd take Office every time for that price.

On-premise Exchange. To be honest, if you're on Office 365 I think it makes more sense to get Office with it. I believe it's only going to be an extra $90 a year on the new Business Premium plan.

It's mostly a fallout from the Nokia deal isn't it?