Managing updates for non-networked machines ?

[johnthomson]

Hello,

My first posting - I hope I'm in the right place...

What I'm trying to do:

I'm looking for a way to manage distributing Windows XPpro hotfixes to a

bunch of XPpro computers which are not connected to the internet (or to

each other). I do support for various people and organisations in

Africa, and many users don't know about hotfixes and don't have an

internet connection in this region.

I'd like to be able to download all hotfixes (the

WindowsXP-KB??????-ENU.exe files), burn a CD, and update each computer

with the correct set of fixes. I've done this successfully with XP

SP2, but I don't have a good way to do the hotfixes.

What I've learned:

From Microsoft.com, I found a tool called qfechecker, but it looks old

and nobody seems very keen on it nowadays, so I abandoned it. Then I

found nlite (from nliteos.com) and windizupdate (from 62nds.com) which

are both good and clever, but neither are what I need.

Finally, I found a thread here on MSFN

(http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=40838) where someone

has written a script to automate the installation stage. In short, it

runs through a list (compiled by hand) of hotfixes, checks they are

not already installed, and installs them with the appropriate command

line switches. It's not professional level stuff (the author admits so

himself), although it's the best I've seen so far (and because I can

see and control what it's doing, I like it).

It can not be:

Surely I am missing something obvious - I can't believe there isn't a

nice tool to do this ? Rather, I'm surprised that there aren't loads

of people trying to do what I'm doing.

Can anyone advice how I should proceed ?

Thanks in advance,

john

[JOSEPHLB]

Here is what I'm doing to collect all post service pack 2 updates:

I performed an initial install of XP Pro , with SP2.

Then, I've installed Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer. This will connect and use Windows Update, but will allow you to download all the updates that you need, offline.

[cluberti]

http://www.autopatcher.com/

[yogger]

While we do use sms for most of our updates, sometimes we need to ship out a machine before sms will get to it. So I wrote a vbs script that will scan the directory it's run from for all the hotfixes in it, then check the registry to see if they are installed, if not, it will install them. I also use this to chain non-hotfix updates that we deem neccessary. It does not do anything to check if it's relevant or if it's been superceeded. I can post the code if it sounds like something you want.