This notification is to inform you that on Friday, January 5th, at 5PM, IT Systems will be patching all SDSC-managed AD Windows desktop and laptops against the recent Spectre/Meltdown vulnerabilities. The installation of the patches should take approximately 1 hour and will require at least one reboot when completed.
We strongly encourage all users with AD laptops, who do not need them at home that evening, to please leave them in their office, turned on, logged out, and plugged into the network. Any users taking their AD laptops home, before or during the patching cycle, will have the patches applied the next time they are connected to the network and communicate with the update server. The patches will then install and the machine may require a reboot at some point during the day. Users taking their laptops home should plan for this eventuality.
IT Systems will also be patching our Citrix environment. The Citrix service will be intermittently unavailable as the machines are rebooted between 5PM and 11PM.