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‎Feb 23, 2005
07:30 AM
Update Service usage
Hi all,
We're currently evaluating the ISUS with a view to including it in several upcoming releases. Given the costs involved...we were wondering how much usage other companies get out of it??
Do your users respond well to the service and take advantage of the downloads/announcements etc?? I'm aware that to certain clients it can be viewed as spyware and is then removed/deactivated and it'd be pretty pointless to pay for the required licence and put the time into implementing the system if the majority of users just turn it off....
I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts/experiences.
Cheers,
Jay
We're currently evaluating the ISUS with a view to including it in several upcoming releases. Given the costs involved...we were wondering how much usage other companies get out of it??
Do your users respond well to the service and take advantage of the downloads/announcements etc?? I'm aware that to certain clients it can be viewed as spyware and is then removed/deactivated and it'd be pretty pointless to pay for the required licence and put the time into implementing the system if the majority of users just turn it off....
I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts/experiences.
Cheers,
Jay
(5) Replies
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‎Feb 23, 2005
12:18 PM
Scan the boards well, a few of us have commented many times about this.
For what I found in my scenario. Now that we are in and everything is set up, I probably will stay with it.
However, given that our update scenario is very simple (telling customers a update .exe file is available...and that's it). Because it doesn't require anything too complex, I sometimes wish we wrote our own upddate service. But I probably wouldn't have been able to write my own, because I would have to figure out all the subtle complexities involved, which Update Service already figured out and solved.
Things I've been pleased with: 1) I was able to write into our program a scenario that checks for updates when it loads, and then immediately tell the user a new update is available. When they choose to run the update, it kills our program, continues running the update, and then it's finished. I've had great success with users responding to that form of updating. This is 99% of the reason we bought Update Service, and it fulfilled our needs. 2) The code, screens, and logic were already in place. I just needed to use them for our update scenario. 3) The user count only counts unique computers, not unique products. This was nice for us, since we use multiple products. 4) The web page makes it pretty easy to add a new update in as well.
Things I haven't been pleased with: 1) Update Manager. It acts like spyware, it has no use for our update scenario, etc. We've complain about it at length on these threads. Change the settings in these forums to read from the last few months to see them all. Luckily, you can set up Update Manager to not include this add on spyware on install. 2) I feel like guinie pig. Update Service still seems new, and we are still fishing out the remaining bugs. I ran into a few problems myself that the documentation was not aware of...and it took a while to get them sorted out. 3) The price. There's something tough about forking over $1000 to have a product that is still going through growing pains, while not being able to get any phone tech support for it.
As for messages...I haven't bothered using them. Maybe there is a coded way to pull messages from Update Service and store it in a string value. If so, that would be handy. But the other way of displaying messages via Update Manager is practically worthless. As for the stats and reports. They sound nice. But I've never had the need to go look at them.
Edit: Accidently refered to Update Manager when I should have referred to Update Service
For what I found in my scenario. Now that we are in and everything is set up, I probably will stay with it.
However, given that our update scenario is very simple (telling customers a update .exe file is available...and that's it). Because it doesn't require anything too complex, I sometimes wish we wrote our own upddate service. But I probably wouldn't have been able to write my own, because I would have to figure out all the subtle complexities involved, which Update Service already figured out and solved.
Things I've been pleased with: 1) I was able to write into our program a scenario that checks for updates when it loads, and then immediately tell the user a new update is available. When they choose to run the update, it kills our program, continues running the update, and then it's finished. I've had great success with users responding to that form of updating. This is 99% of the reason we bought Update Service, and it fulfilled our needs. 2) The code, screens, and logic were already in place. I just needed to use them for our update scenario. 3) The user count only counts unique computers, not unique products. This was nice for us, since we use multiple products. 4) The web page makes it pretty easy to add a new update in as well.
Things I haven't been pleased with: 1) Update Manager. It acts like spyware, it has no use for our update scenario, etc. We've complain about it at length on these threads. Change the settings in these forums to read from the last few months to see them all. Luckily, you can set up Update Manager to not include this add on spyware on install. 2) I feel like guinie pig. Update Service still seems new, and we are still fishing out the remaining bugs. I ran into a few problems myself that the documentation was not aware of...and it took a while to get them sorted out. 3) The price. There's something tough about forking over $1000 to have a product that is still going through growing pains, while not being able to get any phone tech support for it.
As for messages...I haven't bothered using them. Maybe there is a coded way to pull messages from Update Service and store it in a string value. If so, that would be handy. But the other way of displaying messages via Update Manager is practically worthless. As for the stats and reports. They sound nice. But I've never had the need to go look at them.
Edit: Accidently refered to Update Manager when I should have referred to Update Service
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‎Feb 24, 2005
03:46 AM
Thanks for the info Brad, much appreciated 🙂
Can I just make sure that you're using the "deploy to desktops" option, and not the "deploy to enterprises" option...? We would require functionality for both unfortunately, making our licence pretty expensive, and if as you say the product is still developing it could be a costly mistake to start implementing it 😞
Cheers,
Jay
Can I just make sure that you're using the "deploy to desktops" option, and not the "deploy to enterprises" option...? We would require functionality for both unfortunately, making our licence pretty expensive, and if as you say the product is still developing it could be a costly mistake to start implementing it 😞
Cheers,
Jay
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‎Feb 24, 2005
10:55 AM
Yes, I just deploy to desktops. I haven't done anything with enterprise work.
If you worry about all the trouble of coding or integrating Update Service into your product, it would probably be a good idea to ask us for some solutions to your problem. For example, if you were doing a desktop only integration, I'd happily share all the code I've used to finally get Update Service integrated well with our product. And this would save you many days of programming, testing, and hassle.
If you worry about all the trouble of coding or integrating Update Service into your product, it would probably be a good idea to ask us for some solutions to your problem. For example, if you were doing a desktop only integration, I'd happily share all the code I've used to finally get Update Service integrated well with our product. And this would save you many days of programming, testing, and hassle.
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‎Feb 25, 2005
10:50 AM
JayFleming, if you are planning on using the full edition (that is, not using the Starter or Starter Plus tiers) then you should not have any problems. This is because you are in total control of the Update Service. It will launch and check for updates only when you call the APIs. This in turn means it checks for updates only when your customer invokes those calls.
The whole spy-ware/ad-ware tag associated with the Update Service is regarding the Update Manager. If you are a Starter or Starter Plus user you can NOT use the APIs and have to rely on the Update Manager to check for updates. If you are a full edition user you can simply not distribute the Update Manager (since you really don't need it).
The Update Service went through a major platform shift from version 3.0 to 4.0. I would like to think that all the issues caused by this conversion have been resolved in 4.1. We have a lot of customers who are happy with the product but do not post on these communities. That doesn't work in our favor, but that's life :).
The whole spy-ware/ad-ware tag associated with the Update Service is regarding the Update Manager. If you are a Starter or Starter Plus user you can NOT use the APIs and have to rely on the Update Manager to check for updates. If you are a full edition user you can simply not distribute the Update Manager (since you really don't need it).
The Update Service went through a major platform shift from version 3.0 to 4.0. I would like to think that all the issues caused by this conversion have been resolved in 4.1. We have a lot of customers who are happy with the product but do not post on these communities. That doesn't work in our favor, but that's life :).
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‎Feb 28, 2005
10:48 AM
Chandima wrote:Always the way....people are always more keen to complain than compliment :rolleyes:
We have a lot of customers who are happy with the product but do not post on these communities. That doesn't work in our favor, but that's life :).
Anyway....thanks for the replies folks (and the sharing offer Brad, might just take you up on that if we do implement 😉 ), your input is appreciated and any more from other users is more than welcome. As I say we're still evaluating...we're looking at the enterprise level version, but this may change based on costs and some other factors. I'll keep this post up to date with any decisions.
Cheers,
Jay
