Microsoft has posted a workaround for a bug that left some enterprises unable to apply the latest patch Tuesday update.

A snag involving System Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) 2007 - a product designed to make updates easier to apply - meant some users were unable to distribute last week's tranche of seven patches through System Management Server (SMS) 2003 clients.

The glitch was restricted to sysadmins running a mixed ConfigMgr 2007 and SMS 2003 environment. Other versions of the software packages were not affected and able to apply the updates, which included three critical updates.

Workarounds involve using the software distribution feature within ConfigMgr 2007 to push out the patches as explained in an advisory on Microsoft's Security Response weblog. Meanwhile Microsoft's security response team is working on a fix to squash the bug and prevent a repetition in future months. ®

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