Lessons Learned » Updates

Apple Releases Mac OS 10.6.3, Update Addresses Record Number of Fixes/Improvements

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:31:36 +0000

On Monday, March 29, Apple released a major update to its Snow Leopard operating system, making the incremental update of 10.6.3 available for download and installation. According to ComputerWorld ( http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9174337/Apple_delivers_record_monster_security_update) and other sources, the 92 updates and fixes included in the release is a record number of issues addressed in a single update.

The default Software Update settings in Snow Leopard will check in with the Apple update servers on a weekly basis, so within the next 5-7 days any Mac running Snow Leopard should notify its operator that new updates are available for download and installation. Users can check for this and other updates manually by selecting Software Updates from the Apple Menu on any Mac running OS 10.x.

A security update for Mac OS 10.5 was also released on Monday, and while it is not as large of an update as 10.6.3, it still addresses several significant security issues and should be installed on any 10.5 Macintosh as soon as possible.

Entourage for Exchange Web Services Released

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:23:29 +0000

Today, Microsoft released an update to the Office 2008 suite that allows Entourage (the Exchange e-mail client) to connect to Exchange 2007 servers using Exchange Web Services instead of WebDAV. This update provides improvements in the calendar interface and allows Entourage to sync tasks, notes, and categories with Exchange server. While Entourage still lags terribly behind Outlook 2001 for Mac in terms of feature compatability with Exchange server, this update provides a much-awaited set of improvements for the Mac e-mail client.

Entourage 2008 Web Services edition requires Office 2008 with the 12.2.1 update installed. Unfortunately, Microsoft does not make the updates for Office for Mac cumulative, so if you install Office 2008 from the original media, you must first install Office 2008 SP1, then Office 2008 SP2, then the 12.2.1 Update before you will be able to install Entourage Web Services Edition. All of these downloads are available at the Mactopia download site, http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.

Detailed information about how Entourage Web Services works and tips for how to upgrade to Entourage Web Services can be found at the Microsoft Mac IT Pros site, http://www.microsoft.com/mac/itpros/default.mspx.

Remotely Installing This Month’s ISA Update

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:05:19 +0000

Just a heads-up for those of you who remotely install security updates for your customers. This month includes an update for ISA, and if you don’t know about it beforehand, you could end up in a bit of a jam.

As expected, when installing the ISA update, access to the Internet through the server is interrupted. Unlike some previous updates, however, when the installation of this update completes, Internet access is NOT restored. You don’t get Internet back until you restart the server.

So if you don’t have some mechanism in place for restarting the server automatically after updates install, you could find yourself, and your customer, in a rather unexpected place.

Excel Security Update Applies to Mac Office, Too

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:28:59 +0000

Microsoft released a couple of updates for their Excel spreadsheet product in the slate of monthly updates for April 2009. The security issues addressed in the update also apply to the Mac version of Excel as well. As such, Microsoft has released updates for both Office 2004 and Office 2008 for the Mac. The files can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx. Because of the nature of the update, all Mac Office users are encouraged to install this update as soon as possible.

Hotfix for Server 2008 Issue Available

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:11:27 +0000

Microsoft released a hotfix today that addresses an issue in the Server 2008 networking stack. Users of SBS 2008 may have seen the effects of this issue if networking services seemed to “hang” after the server had been running for 4-7 days and needed a restart to restore normal operations. The problem has manifested with certain software products attempting to access the impacted resource. One such application is Trend Worry-Free 5.1, but it is not the only application that has seen the issue. Note that third-party applications are not causing the issue, but third-party applications that attempt to access the problematic code are seeing the issue.

Microsoft has released a hotfix for this issue, but the KB article, KB961775, that describes the issue in detail is not yet available. The hotfix can be downloaded from http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=961775&kbln=en-us.

UPDATE: While the MS KB has not been made public yet, the SBS blog does have detailed information on this issue. Check out their blog post at: http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2009/02/12/you-may-lose-network-connectivity-on-sbs-2008-when-using-a-driver-which-utilizes-tdi.aspx.

SBS 2008 Update Rollup 1 Available

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:33:56 +0000

Microsoft released the first update specifically for SBS 2008, information can be found in KB958715. The Officical SBS Blog also discusses the update. The update addressess two issues in the initial release of SBS 2008:

The Security Tab in the SBS console did not correctly report anti-virus status on connected workstations for some anti-virus programs. I’ve been experiencing this with Sophos Anti-virus, which we use with our client base. After installing the update, I can confirm that the anti-virus status is now correctly reported with Sophos Anti-virus on the workstations.
The Internet Address Wizard stops functioning when registering a domain name through GoDaddy.

The update is now available through Microsoft Update and should appear in the Update subtab of the Windows SBS Console. You can approve the update in the console and allow it to roll automatically through WSUS, or you can manually install the update as follows:

Open the Windows Update panel from the Start Menu.
Click the Check online for updates from Microsoft Update link in the panel.
When the check finishes, you should see at least one update available. Click the View available updates link to see all updates available.
Under Windows Small Business Server 2008, you should see the Update Rollup 1 for Small Business Server 2008 (KB958715) in the list and checked.
Click Install to install the update.

No restart is needed after the update installs, but you should close the SBS Console prior to installing the update.