Question

About Windows Update Service

Asked by: skykuhl

Greetings,

I have a windows 2003 server that is running windows update service.  I have not used that service too much before and I noticed that my client machines hadn't updated to win xp sp3 so I started to look into it and figured out that I needed to approve the updates (I didn't originally configure it).

Anyway I have approved a bunch of updates today and my questions are these:

1. for a 20 seat network is it recommended even to use this service?

2. If I have approved updates, I am assuming that they will be installed in the proper order and such, however I don't know if I can see when the updates are being applied or if I can force them to be applied to a certain machine.  For example if I wanted to install IE 8 on a particular machine.  I don't think it will be a big issue because once it catches up with the past updates, it shouldn't be a problem now that I see how it works.

Thanks very much.

Sky

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Asked On
2009-09-08 at 14:50:35ID24716412
Topics

Microsoft Server

,

Windows 2003 Server

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
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Answers

 

by: inorbitalPosted on 2009-09-08 at 15:03:44ID: 25286557

So you're running WSUS?

1.) I think the more important question is are you trying to setup an environment where you have the time to monitor windows updates & strictly control release dates & test updates prior to releasing to clients?

2.) Yes you can approve individual machines or groups of machines which you can define

 

by: strongsaucePosted on 2009-09-09 at 06:39:30ID: 25291091

If you are using WSUS they will propagate but not immediately, it will take some time for all of them to go down the chain.

You can definitely approve/decline updates for individual computers/groups. Of course this does take some time to propagate. If someone wants a certain update immediately, you can install it using the download package from download.microsoft.com usually.

I have noticed that if you are controlling the Windows updates functionality through GP you will not be able to use the Windows Update site. Sometimes if you have a computer that isn't attached to the network often (such as a notebook) you can still run the Windows Update tool by disjoining the domain, using the Windows Update site then rejoining the domain, if you have a situation like that.

 

by: diggisaurPosted on 2009-09-09 at 11:20:06ID: 25294069

1/. I used it for networks that size all the time.

2/. Typically the way the clients update is configured through the same GPO that directs the clients to use the internal WSUS server. If you want to force right away you can try the "wuauclt.exe /detectnow" command from the PC in question. However, this can take some time and you will have to refresh Event Viewer to see if it is working or manually check the values of certain registry keys. However, updates are cumulative so you may not know if that IE8 update will come down in the first detectnow command. It might be several reboots later as well and depending on how that GPO is configured will determine if the PC attempts to force or notify the user to reboot or not after updates are applied. Like the other guys have recommended here it might be easier to download IE from going to "www.microsoft.com/ie". Once WSUS is in place Windows Update from the client side often won't work anymore.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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