Maintenance Windows - Best Practices

One of the features of SCCM I've looked forward to the most are Maintenance Windows. The Best Practice Recommendations (in the Help File) suggests that:
"....you should create specific collections for this purpose rather than use the default collections"
If I want to implement Maintenance Windows accross the board, do I need to configure every collection that I create? Will the client get their Maintenance Windows settings as a result of an advertisement on a collection they're in? Or will they get the settings simply by being in a configured collection?
Finally, if I create an advertisement / deployment with, say a 2-week deadline, should I avoid Maintenance Windows for this scenario? The deadline won't override any Maintenance Windows will it?

I can't tell you what to do. However, trying to answer your previous post, I said you could do that. But if you tell the advert/deployment to ignore maintenance windows, then you are not adhering to them at all, and you may get deployments outside the time frame you intended.
If you want to deploy to users, and let them deploy independently, then you don't need maintenance windows at all. But if you want maintenance windows so that assignments are deployed at the deadline, but according to windows, then you have windows defined.
If an assignment is configured to allow end user to run independently of the assignment, then IF a user does that, it ignores maintenance windows. Windows are only adhered to by scheduled tasks, not optional ones that are user driven. So don't configure the assignment to ignore windows, as then it might deploy automatically at the deadline, at a time you didn't want on some servers.
Leave windows inplace, but if users run the advertisement or patch deployment on their own, we don't adhere to windows.
I'd probably look at two templates - one for users and one for servers. The user template would not suppress so the users could deploy manually (clicking the icon). The server template would suppress notifications, and just wait for the deadline, and the appropriate window.
Does that make sense?

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Eswar Koneti | Configmgr blog:
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This topic first appeared in the Spiceworks Community

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Hasty

Hello,
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*RAC Assurance Support Team: RAC Starter Kit and Best Practices (Windows) [ID 811271.1]*
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&doctype=BULLETIN&id=811271.1
DOC Modified: 14-DEC-2010
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Maintenance Windows - Best Practices

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