At the end of the past week, Microsoft announced a refresh to the Windows Update agent in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 3. However, accompanying the new version of the Windows Update client being rolled out to Windows users, there is an infrastructure update which spans well beyond Vista SP1 and XP SP3, all the way to the Windows Server Update Services. According to the Redmond company, the update to Windows Update will debut by the end of July, 2008, and will be delivered in the next couple of months. Unlike the Windows clients, which will have the refresh provided by default and move to the next version of the Windows Update agent if the Automatic Update features are not completely switched off, WSUS users have to perform a WU synchronization in order to enjoy the update.

"We wanted to let you know that a new version of the Windows Update Agent is being released on Windows Update over the next couple of months. Because WSUS and Windows Update both use the same Windows Update Agent, this means that WSUS-managed end-user who navigates to WU to perform an interactive sync will receive an updated version of WUA as this new agent is rolled out over the next few months," explained Marc Shepard, WSUS Program Manager Lead.

However, it is possible that WSUS users continue to rely on the current version of the Windows Update client rather than update. This is also valid for users of Vista SP1 and XP SP3, but Microsoft informed that the update to the WU infrastructure is necessary in order to ensure that all subsequent releases will find their way and integrate without any issues with the operating systems.

"Machines whose end-users don't explicitly navigate to WUA to perform an interactive scan will continue to use the existing version of WUA. This will result in a mixture of WUA versions in most corporate environments. Because WUA is backwards compatible, machines that receive the newer agent will continue to work just fine with WSUS," Shepard added.