Announced as early a July 2008, a new update for the Windows Update Agent will be rolled out today, Monday, November 3. At the end of October, Microsoft offered a heads up for customers to prepare for the start of this week when the standalone WUA update was scheduled to become available. The Redmond company updates not only its software products, but also its updating infrastructure, part of which is represented by the Windows Update Agent. However, the software giant indicated that not all customers would be able to benefit from the WU Agent update immediately.

“Over the next couple of months we’ll be rolling out another infrastructure update to the Windows Update agent (client code). This update makes it possible for users to install more than 80 updates at the same time,” a member of the Microsoft Update team revealed. “We need to periodically update the client code to provide improvements in reliability and service quality.”

The Windows Update Agent is the bridge that connects Windows computers with the Windows Update website as well as with the Microsoft System Management Server and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) servers. Simply visiting the Microsoft Update site will cause the WU Agent to be updated automatically, Microsoft informed.

In addition to the WU Agent update, Microsoft is also preparing to add new categories to Windows Server Update Services. “WSUS admins will be seeing a new product category under the Windows Live product family in the future. The new product category will be Windows Live OneCare,” the MU team representative added.

“In the next few weeks, Microsoft Update is adding a new product family to your WSUS server - Windows Live OneCare. These product updates for Windows Live OneCare are applicable for a future release,” explained Cecilia Cole, WSUS Program Manager.