Can SCE2010 be used as a straight wsus server? or will it only deploy to machines with an agent. For instance, I have a few hundred virtual machines that I don't want to manage through SCE2010, but during the inital build of the gold master, id like to point it at my SCE server to grab its updates rather than go out to the internet. (painfully slow) Is this possible or must they be managed?

Hello Scott, SCE 2010 uses the integrated WSUS to deploy the updates And the WSUS is absolutely indispensable for the SCE server to manage the clients. They run cooperatively. If you look at changes made in SCE they will reflect in WSUS and vise versa. So you cannot just update the VMs without installing the SCE agents on them. In your scenario, I would suggest using another WSUS server. You can install the SCE server and the WSUS server in a same domain. But a specific computer can only be managed by one server, either Essentials server or WSUS server. By design, if you installed the SCE agent on the computers, a GPO will be created and deployed to the managed computers to force them to update through the SCE server. You can create another GPO and deployed to the other computers to point them to the WSUS server. Please see the following thread for more details: wsus and agents http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/systemcenteressentials/thread/c0a3e48e-6df7-45d1-8330-ddf76e0edca8 Thanks,Yog Li -- Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.