Never have the above words been more true.

The network at my offices (both Cape Town and Johannesburg) have been hit by the deadly Conficker virus and the network has been crippled.

I was up till early Monday morning (yes, 3AM) writing domain logon scripts to try and get the infected PC's patched.

The sad thing thing, this was an easily preventable situation.

Microsoft has known about the vulnerability for a very long time.

Security update KB958644 patches the vulnerability that the virus exploits to infect your system. This patch has been available since the 22nd of October, 2008.

I hate to say it, but... I told you so.

I can understand why they do not allow Windows Updates updates to be installed across the network. With bandwidth being as limited as it is in South Africa, having 1000+ PC's updating their system at the same time, your bandwidth bill could become quite big.

It is so easily solved though!

At the previous network that I ran, one of the first things I implemented when starting there, was a local Windows Update server. You install Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) on ANY workstation. This nifty little piece of software then downloads all the Windows Updates in certain categories that you mark beforehand. After that, you configure all the client workstations to use updates from that workstation instead of Microsoft's website.

It's that easy. One machine downloads updates, the rest update from it.

Best of all, WSUS is free.

How many man hours and productivity is being lost because of something so easily avoided?

Ever since I've had a job at a local Internet Service Provider doing customer support, one of the things that I have learned is that you can not ignore Windows Updates. It is one of the most important steps you can take to secure your PC, in some cases even more important than anti-virus software or firewall software.

I keep stressing the importance of Windows Updates to a lot of people, but still, they get annoyed by the little pop-up in the corner, or the occasional update asking you to restart.

Live with it, at least your PC is safer.