A must-have patch management tool for sys admins

A must-have patch management tool for sys admins



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Gravity Storm Software released a free version of its flagship product, Service Pack Manager 2000. This release came in response to free Microsoft security hotfix discovery command-line tool, HFNETCHK. Unlike HFNETCHK, the free version of SPM2000 is a LITE version with a full-blown User Interface and a rich set of features. Although some features that appear in a full version of the product are disabled in the free LITE version, it is still the first free security patching tool with no equivalent on the market.

The free LITE version was released as part of the global new release of Service Pack Manager 2000 V6.3 that added support for Windows XP and Microsoft ISA 2000 Server. I've been using SPM2000 for over a year now and must admit that I probably saved my company anything between $100,000 to $200,000 if I think about all the people and my own time I had to spend to manage NT/2000 Service Packs and security hotfixes. It's a bigtime saver, but more importantly, it makes patching security holes in my 120 machines viable. It's a must-have tool for every sys admin!


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This was first published in March 2002

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