SMS 2.0 Service Pack 2 Now Available

This long-awaited update to Systems Management Server (SMS) 2.0 adds support for Windows 2000 clients and servers and fixes many—but not all—of the bugs that have especially plagued larger SMS 2.0 installations. SMS allows administrators responsible for large groups of desktop and server machines to perform a wide variety of management tasks from a central console, including hardware and software inventory, software distribution and installation, license control, and remote management and monitoring.

Why SP2 Was Necessary

SMS 2.0 was a major redesign of its predecessor, SMS 1.2. Although it contained many improvements, it also proved to be very complex and somewhat buggy. SMS 2.0 Service Pack (SP) 1 helped, but many problems remained, and the list of available hotfixes grew quickly. Customers with larger, more complex SMS topographies had difficulty making SMS work well in their environments.

Another limitation of SMS 2.0 was its lack of support for Windows 2000. SMS’s software distribution feature was designed to help medium and large organizations install software or make configuration changes to large numbers of target systems. Unfortunately, because SMS 2.0 originally shipped in early 1999 (a year prior to Windows 2000’s release), it could not be used to either upgrade older client workstations to Windows 2000 Professional or run on Windows 2000 servers.