WSUS clients appear and disappear from the WSUS Update Services console

Windows Server Update Services (WSUS): WSUS previously known as Software Update Services (SUS), is a computer program and network service developed by Microsoft Corporation that enables administrators to manage the distribution of updates and hotfixes released for Microsoft products to computers in a corporate environment.

For more articles I have written, see the following hyperlinks below
– Configuring WSUS Email Notification to Work With Office365
– How to setup and configure Windows server update services (WSUS)
– Important Areas to Master on WSUS (Installed and not applicable, Install 1/4, and Installed / Not applicable 100)
– Targeting WSUS Client with the Registry keys: How to configure WSUS Clients to get Updates from the WSUS server using Registry settings
– How to apply Windows Updates from WSUS to the server using AWS RunCommand
– How to Configure SSL between WSUS servers (Upstream and Downstream Servers)
– Handy WSUS Commands – Windows Server Update Services Commands, WAUACLT, PowerShell and USOClient
– How to Start, Stop and Restart Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) via PowerShell and CMD
– Windows Server Update Services: Windows 2016 Servers does not show up on WSUS console,

Note: When I login to each workstation and type in CLI (CMD)

wuauclt.exe /detectnow /reportnow

I am able to see these machines from the WSUS console but the other would disappear.

– Reason for unexpected behaviour
This happens sometimes to cloned servers because they are having the same SUSClientID. Each time the server contacts WSUS, the entry in the WSUS console would get overwritten with the new server information and the existing machine would disappear.

Solution: Navigate to this registry path below and delete the “**SusClientID**” and “**SusClientIDValidation**” registry values in the key

HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionWindowsUpdate

Restart the windows update service

And perform or run the following from the CLI below

wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow
wuauclt.exe /detectnow /reportnow

Since the WUACLT is deprecated and not available in newer operating system, take a look on this article on how to scan or force updates from WSUS using “usoclient.exe” https://techdirectarchive.com/2020/02/05/handy-windows-server-update-services-commands-wauaclt-powershell-and-usoclient/

4 Comments

Inline Feedbacks

View all comments

Graeme

9 months ago

This exact problem has done my head in with some AWS servers running 2016
The wuauclt is deprecated but you can run usoclient.exe startscan to force a check-in to WSUS and get a new client ID generated too
Thanks regardless for the tip it’s going to save a lot of headaches

SysEnthusiast

Reply to Graeme

Hi Graeme,

Thank you very much for your nice comment. I appreciate this. For more commands on usoclient.exe, see the following article
– https://techdirectarchive.com/2020/02/05/handy-windows-server-update-services-commands-wauaclt-powershell-and-usoclient/

Mike

3 months ago

tks, you made my day 😉

Christian

Reply to Mike

You are welcome

Christian on How to enable automatic logon on Windows 10 via the Registry: “Dear Shad, I am glad you found this article very useful. Also, thank you very much for this input, I…”
Shad on How to enable automatic logon on Windows 10 via the Registry: “Thank you very much. On LATEST Win10 (2020) One has to first add the AutoAdminLogon string and add ‘1’ as…”
Christian on How to create a self-signed certificates using PowerShell: “Hi Warda, search for PowerShell from the Windows Search as attached. You have to right-click on it and select run…”
warda on How to create a self-signed certificates using PowerShell: “hi I am getting this error in power shell, I dont understand how do you open it in administrator account.…”

Related