Windows Update Severity levels VS TEM Patch Management Serverity levels

(imported topic written by SystemAdmin)

We have been patching Windows Servers with BigFix / TEM for the past 4 years. When we first deployed BigFix we decided to patch all critical and important MS security patches to our windows servers. Today we are finding out that was not really a good idea. When you go to Windows update you see about 50+ patches that need to be applied. If you check on the severity of some of those updates you can see that they don’t match with what BigFix / TEM have them listed as.

Why is there a discrepancy between what MS has the update listed as and what BigFix / TEM has it listed as.

Is there a BigFix / TEM best practice for deploying MS updates?

Thank you for you time

Chris

(imported comment written by TerryWeiChao)

Hi Chris,

Not sure what type of patches are missing on your machine. If they were non-security critical patches, that could be possible. Recently, TEM announce to support non-security critical patches for windows product family. So before that, I think there are only several non-security critical patches.

It would be great if you can contact our support, let’s see what we can do for you. And thanks for supporting the product for last 4 years!

Terry

(imported comment written by CSL2012)

I’ve been managing vulnerabilities from a Compliance standpoint for quite a few years. As far as TEM is concerned, they’ve done an Oustanding job releasing content that are vulnerability, security, and/or finding related.

In light of upcoming support, I’ll have to differentiate the current from non related patches, they are the ones I call enhancement patches. These are the ones that don’t offer any business value from a Windows Server standpoint, say for example: KB2785094 (Resolves an issue that could cause low-quality playback when you stream videos from Windows Media Center to Xbox consoles. Improves Bluetooth audio playback quality. Resolves an issue in which you may be unable to install a Windows Store app update when the app is installed to multiple accounts on the same computer).

Keep Up the good work.

Chi