Installation of patches - Best Practices

[landoa]

Hello,

1.  What's the best practice concerning installation of all related patches for Backup Exec 11d build 7170?

I imagine it would be best to first install SP1.  Then, device drivers.  Then all patches released after SP1?  Or, is it better to choose and install only the patches that apply to the system Backup Exec must run on (Windows 2003 R2 SP2) ?

2.  Tests in a virtual environment showed that restarts were required after installing patches.  Is it "safe" to install all patches and then restart only once? 

3.  Is there a way to speed up installing multiple patches rather than stopping/starting services each time?

4.  Is SP2 for build 7170 coming out anytime soon?!

Thanks for any ideas.

[Rider]

I can't speak to all of your questions, but I've been told by Symantec support that there isn't a need to reboot between installing patches that need a reboot.

I would also recommend installing drivers and patches in the order in which they were released.

I'll keep on eye on other replies because I'd love to install multiple patches without restarting services each time.

[Heath_Higgins]

SP2 is now available. Good luck trying to download it...i'm getting very sloooooooow dl speeds