windows updates could learn a lot from the ubuntu unattended-upgrades package

I was already pretty darn impressed with the ease, and simplicity of upgrading the entire operating system. Seriously, it's as simple as one single command:

sudo do-release-upgrade

But what I now wanted, was a simple way to keep a bunch of ubuntu servers patched up with the latest upgrades. Keeping things nicely up-to-date between major releases. I toyed with some fancy, centrally managed solutions, like the ubuntu landscape offering, even puppet or chef. But ultimately, if you've only got a handful of servers; why not just go for something dead simple...

sudo apt-get install unattended-upgrades

Done. The machines will email you if they need an occasional reboot. But otherwise, they will keep themselves up-to-date, without bothering you too much.

There's a bunch of other stuff you can tweak - nicely detailed on the ubuntu wiki. For bonus points: if you plop your /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades file into dropbox, and symlink it on each server, you can ensure all machines are using the same upgrade settings. Easy peasy...

Actually: to be fair, windows update services is pretty cool too. But for only a handful of machines, it's a bit over the top (imho).