This may be a stupid question but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Some of you may have seen my other post re suggestions for firewall software. This new question is regarding Windows Updates for the dedicated Windows 2000 server that I've taken ownership of.

I realise how important it is to keep the system up to date with the latest patches and service packs from Microsoft, so I have set-up the Windows Updates to download automatically and to just let me know when they need to be installed. However, some of the updates require the system to be re-booted. Now if I'm hosting numerous websites on the server, I'm correct in saying that by rebooting the server this is going to bring down the websites?? If so, what other impacts, if any, will it have when the server is re-booted - in other words is it safe? Told you it was a stupid question!!

Also, by bringing the server down, will any services such as FTP, MSSQL Server etc need to be restarted?

Hello ,

Rebooting the server will surely bring all the sites on IIS down as it would happen when you reboot your workstation in LAN and other users are unable to access your workstation resources.:stickout:

Probably to reduce the down time that your user will have encounter, you may check out when is the time when the server is not in peak usage so that a quick reboot will not affect too much of down time .

You may configure the services such as MSSQL etc...to auto restart in > Administrative Tools > Services .Right click on the services you wish to start them automatically and set it to auto.


Just my 2 cents , sorry if I am wrong in somewhere.Maybe someone might pin-point out some better suggestion.:D



Regards,


Andy

That's exactly what I do with a Win2k machine I look after Andy.

I reboot the machine at a time when usage is low, and it only takes a couple of minutes to come back up.

With it being a Windows server though you do get slightly nervous when rebooting after installing something like a new service pack!! You just know that one day it's gonna mess up ;)

One piece of advice from me though, when you install service packs (or anything else which is likely to make big changes to the system), download the standalone installer rather than running the update over the internet. From past experience I've found this to be much more reliable.

Matt