Sharepoint Service 2.0 SP3

[Azhar]

This weekend I was doing routine maintenance on the company server (all are Windows Server 2003 boxes) and as usual ran Windows Update and patched it with critical and non-critical updates.

In the latest update, I see Sharepoint Service 2.0 Service Pack 3, and I sucked in my breath and hesitated. Service Packs always make me nervous. We have alot of very mission-critical documents and entries in the company Sharepoint site, so I want to make sure it's safe before running the update.

Anyone here have any experience with WSS2.0 SP3? Was it a good experience? Did it break anything?

 

[Deque]

We have alot of very mission-critical documents and entries in the company Sharepoint site, so I want to make sure it's safe before running the update.

SharePoint stability is "mission critical" but you have no test environment for testing? That's not good.

At the very least, because SharePoint Services is a free download, you can probably download Virtual PC 2007, install Windows Server 2003 (or whatever OS you're using), clone your SharePoint environment using full fidelity backups (spsadm?) and then install Service Pack 3 and see what it breaks.

 

[Azhar]

SharePoint stability is "mission critical" but you have no test environment for testing? That's not good.

At the very least, because SharePoint Services is a free download, you can probably download Virtual PC 2007, install Windows Server 2003 (or whatever OS you're using), clone your SharePoint environment using full fidelity backups (spsadm?) and then install Service Pack 3 and see what it breaks.

well everything on the server is critical of course.. exchange, sharepoint, citrix, terminal server, primavera, and so on..

every job by each employees demands different programs and accesses to them. We're a project management company.

everything we run is backed up daily courtesy of an LTO2 tape drive and BackupExec
(yes I know, not many people like this software, but it works lol).

so if anything was to happen to the servers, at least we're backed up.

but I wouldn't want to deliberately bring the server down myself because of a borked service pack update, which is why I'm asking you guys. I'm researching elsewhere too. I try and get all the information I can before making any large updates.

 

[three_sixteen]

well everything on the server is critical of course.. exchange, sharepoint, citrix, terminal server, primavera, and so on..

every job by each employees demands different programs and accesses to them. We're a project management company.

everything we run is backed up daily courtesy of an LTO2 tape drive and BackupExec
(yes I know, not many people like this software, but it works lol).

so if anything was to happen to the servers, at least we're backed up.

but I wouldn't want to deliberately bring the server down myself because of a borked service pack update, which is why I'm asking you guys. I'm researching elsewhere too. I try and get all the information I can before making any large updates.

Even still, it sounds like it might not be a bad idea to use VMWare or something to set up a test environment with all of your critical apps to just test it on before you go to production.

Research is good and all, but until you throw it into production you can never really be sure that something goofy wont break. It'l be good for you moving forward as well, because you may very well end up saving yourself more work/time in the end.

 

[AMDbuilder]

Another vote for running a testing environment before deploying large updates.

If I recall correctly one of the key points with the WSUS service is the ability to withhold updated until they can be properly tested and then deployed, granted this dosn't help you much, but the point is if MS includes the ability to delay heavly tested updates so you can test them... Well you should do so..

On the note of testing, Have you actually tested your backups to see if you could recover anything from them? Every time I see/hear about people doing tape backups I always cringe as it's normally a pain deal with (desktop pc and such) and they normally don't work....

AMDbuilder

 

[Azhar]

Another vote for running a testing environment before deploying large updates.

If I recall correctly one of the key points with the WSUS service is the ability to withhold updated until they can be properly tested and then deployed, granted this dosn't help you much, but the point is if MS includes the ability to delay heavly tested updates so you can test them... Well you should do so..

On the note of testing, Have you actually tested your backups to see if you could recover anything from them? Every time I see/hear about people doing tape backups I always cringe as it's normally a pain deal with (desktop pc and such) and they normally don't work....

AMDbuilder

Yup it's been tested. I have a spare computer aside pretending to be a server for me to play with before deploying something, like Citrix or Windows 2008 beta.

I just didn't have Windows Sharepoint Service available to try out though. We have one licensed copy of Windows 2003 Small Business Server that comes with Sharepoint.

Of course I never looked to see if Sharepoint Service was actually a free download lol =P

I'm a little too busy for the time being to play with Sharepoint, so I'll get back to you guys when I have the time. Thanks for all your replies! =)

 

[Cobalt2112]

Waiting for SharePoint 2007 SP1