The Windows Update Services Evaluation site went live on www.microsoft.com/wus last night at 1:00am Pacific Standard Time on November 16th, 2004.

This beta is a key milestone for Windows Update Services. You can sign up and download the bits here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/wus/trial.mspx

Prerequisite for WUS
Background Intelligent Transfer Services (BITS) 2.0 beta must be installed prior to installing WUS. BITS enables the download of updates in the background
using available network bandwidth. BITS 2.0 beta is compatible with servers running Windows 2000 Server SP4 and above, or Windows Server 2003.

The Newsgroup information for the open evaluation beta can be found at:   http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/wus/newsgroup.mspx

Microsoft has also started a Windows Update Services "Wiki" to try and  build a substantial amount of product expertise, best practices,
support information, application ideas, and basic FAQ's and how to's.