Microsoft Please re-evaluate your rating system.

Sorry to gripe about this but with so many "Critical"
patches from Microsoft it is impossible to properly asses
the impact of each of the hotfixes. Every time Microsoft
declares a patch "critical" it means to me at least two
more weeks of unproductive time for my team while they
patch servers.

In my assesment it looks like we could reclassify 80% of
these 'critical' patches as 'significantly important' and
leave the 'crtital' rating for the 20% of patches that are
drop-dead urgent, do it now!

chuck richards
OTIS Elevator

Joe
Mon Sep 08 18:59:26 CDT 2003

You should be going through internal classifications yourself as there is no one better to judge your company's risks
than yourself. Most likely if you are like the company I work for currently, you will have several classifications for
each of the patches depending on the types of machines i.e. clients versus servers, internal servers versus DMZ or
extranet servers, etc. Also something that could be critical for one company may have no impact at all to another
company. MS's ratings are best guess across the majority of their customer base which includes home PC's as well as
corporate.

The last "critical" patch for servers that I have seen that I thought was critical and required immediate action was the
RPC patch - MS03-26 in which I personally patched the 400 or so servers I was directly responsible for globally within
48 hours of the notification. There are thousands of other servers around the company that I am not responsible for that
were patched at varying times depending on the apps and the times the machines could be rebooted.

--
Joe Richards
www.joeware.net

--

"Chuck Richards" <chuck@otis.com> wrote in message news:4d4e01c3764e$a3644510$a601280a@phx.gbl...
> Sorry to gripe about this but with so many "Critical"
> patches from Microsoft it is impossible to properly asses
> the impact of each of the hotfixes. Every time Microsoft
> declares a patch "critical" it means to me at least two
> more weeks of unproductive time for my team while they
> patch servers.
>
> In my assesment it looks like we could reclassify 80% of
> these 'critical' patches as 'significantly important' and
> leave the 'crtital' rating for the 20% of patches that are
> drop-dead urgent, do it now!
>
> chuck richards
> OTIS Elevator

George
Mon Sep 08 20:46:01 CDT 2003

You're telling me boy. Gosh this is getting out of hand.

--=20
George Hester
__________________________________
"Chuck Richards" <chuck@otis.com> wrote in message =
news:4d4e01c3764e$a3644510$a601280a@phx.gbl...
> Sorry to gripe about this but with so many "Critical"=20
> patches from Microsoft it is impossible to properly asses=20
> the impact of each of the hotfixes. Every time Microsoft=20
> declares a patch "critical" it means to me at least two=20
> more weeks of unproductive time for my team while they=20
> patch servers.
>=20
> In my assesment it looks like we could reclassify 80% of=20
> these 'critical' patches as 'significantly important' and=20
> leave the 'crtital' rating for the 20% of patches that are=20
> drop-dead urgent, do it now!
>=20
> chuck richards
> OTIS Elevator

Shenan
Tue Sep 09 14:35:04 CDT 2003

Chuck Richards <> wrote:
> Sorry to gripe about this but with so many "Critical"
> patches from Microsoft it is impossible to properly asses
> the impact of each of the hotfixes. Every time Microsoft
> declares a patch "critical" it means to me at least two
> more weeks of unproductive time for my team while they
> patch servers.
>
> In my assesment it looks like we could reclassify 80% of
> these 'critical' patches as 'significantly important' and
> leave the 'crtital' rating for the 20% of patches that are
> drop-dead urgent, do it now!
>
> chuck richards
> OTIS Elevator

2 weeks?

--
Shenan Stanley
"Just trying to help"
-------------------------
How to use XPs Help and Support
http://tinyurl.com/fltf

How to Use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups
http://tinyurl.com/fkja

How do I go about posting an informative question?
http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

How to use Google
http://www.google.com/help/basics.html
http://tinyurl.com/fkmc
-------------------------

chuck
Wed Sep 10 20:54:57 CDT 2003

57226 devices scattered around the globe takes at least
two weeks. If Europe is on vacation. well, then it takes
longer :-)

>-----Original Message-----
>Chuck Richards <> wrote:
>> Sorry to gripe about this but with so many "Critical"
>> patches from Microsoft it is impossible to properly
asses
>> the impact of each of the hotfixes. Every time
Microsoft
>> declares a patch "critical" it means to me at least two
>> more weeks of unproductive time for my team while they
>> patch servers.
>>
>> In my assesment it looks like we could reclassify 80% of
>> these 'critical' patches as 'significantly important'
and
>> leave the 'crtital' rating for the 20% of patches that
are
>> drop-dead urgent, do it now!
>>
>> chuck richards
>> OTIS Elevator
>
>2 weeks?
>
>--
>Shenan Stanley
>"Just trying to help"
>-------------------------
>How to use XPs Help and Support
>http://tinyurl.com/fltf
>
>How to Use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups
>http://tinyurl.com/fkja
>
>How do I go about posting an informative question?
>http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
>
>How to use Google
>http://www.google.com/help/basics.html
>http://tinyurl.com/fkmc
>-------------------------
>
>
>.
>