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Windows: Thursday Morning Patch Push


Summary

In an effort to keep ECN-supported Windows computers up to date and secure, every Thursday morning, computers may restart if they need to apply any pending changes. We release software updates to all ECN supported Windows computers on the third Thursday following the second Tuesday of every month. This is often but not always the last Thursday of the month..


Procedure

All ECN supported Microsoft Windows computers enter a maintenance window every Thursday morning from 12:30 AM to 5:30 AM. Meaning, if anything has been changed on the machine that requires a restart to apply, the system will reboot itself during this time.

From 12:30 AM to 5:30 AM on the third Thursday following the second Tuesday of each month, software updates are released to all ECN supported Microsoft Windows computers. During this time, the PCs will install all pending Microsoft updates and if necessary, reboot to apply the changes.

If a critical Microsoft update is released, we may need to push the urgent patch to all ECN Supported Windows computers before the regularly scheduled patch push. If this happens, the Software Center application on your PC will notify you of the pending reboot. Additionally, we will send a message to the EPM mailing list (more information on the mailing list below) warning of the upcoming potential Thursday reboot.

We understand that some computers should not be rebooted on Thursday morning for various reasons. We do provide options to have your machine excluded from the maintenance window for the current week. 

You can add your machine to the exclusion list by going to the patch exclusion website  and filling out the form before 11:30 PM on Wednesday night. If you enter your machine after 11:30 PM, your machine will be excluded from the following week's maintenance window.

Please note, if your computer is excluded or offline during the patch push, the PC will apply the updates and reboot if needed the following Thursday.

We strongly recommend using checkpoints in any long running code so if a reboot or power outage does happen, you can easily revert back to the last checkpoint instead of losing all of the acquired data.

A mailing list has been setup to notify users of upcoming Microsoft update pushes and any other planned Thursday reboots. You can subscribe to the list by going to https://engineering.purdue.edu/ECN/mailman/listinfo/epm-list.

If you have any questions, please direct them to windows@ecn.purdue.edu.

Disclaimer: All times are in Eastern Time

 

Last Modified: Aug 12, 2022 3:16 pm America/New_York
Created: Nov 6, 2007 2:14 pm US/Eastern by admin
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