Working with WSUS is not a relatively easy task, for ease of troubleshooting and fixing updates errors, there is a need to know a bunch of useful commands such as the WAUACLT, PowerShell, and USOClient. For links to some documentation on WSUS by myself on where some of these commands have been used previously, take a look at the following hyperlinks. Important Areas to Master on WSUS, Configuring WSUS Email Notification to Work With Office365, Configuring WSUS Email Notification to Work With Office365 – IIS SMTP Relay Server and how to configure SSL between WSUS servers (Upstream and Downstream Servers).
For more documentation on WSUS, take a look at the following hyperlinks. WSUS clients appear then disappear in the console, how to Start, Stop and Restart Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) via PowerShell and CMD, Windows 2016 Servers do not show up on the WSUS console . Applying Updates Deployed by WSUS to Workstations using AWS RunCommand.
Windows Update Automatic Update Client (WUAUCLT)
This refers to the Windows Update Automatic Update Client. This command has been replaced in the most recent versions of Windows OS with the USOclient. Note: (WUAUCLT tool still works very well to date on Windows 2016. I tested and they worked great.
Please find below a list of commands that can be used alongside WUACLT and their explanations below. The first three (3) are probably the most used commands of WUAUCLT.
WUAUCLT /detectnow: Detect and download updates that are available
WUAUCLT /ReportNow: Tell the client to report its status back to the WSUS server
WUAUCLT /UpdateNow : Install updates now
WUAUCLT /ShowSettingsDialog : Show Windows Update settings dialog
WUAUCLT /ShowWindowsUpdate: Shows the windows update dialog box or web page
WUAUCLT /ResetAuthorization : when an update check occurs a cookie is stored that prevents a new update or check for 1 hour. So, you should use this to delete this cookie
WUAUCLT /ResetEulas : Resets the accepted EULAWUAUCLT /SelfUpdateManaged : Scan for windows updates using WSUS
WUAUCLT / SelfUpdateUnmanaged : Triggers a windows update scan using the windows update website
WUAUCLT /ShowOptions : Open the windows update settings window
WUAUCLT /ShowFeaturedOptInDialog : Show Opt-In dialog for featured updates
WUAUCLT /DemoUI : Show the icons for windows update
WUAUCLT / ShowFeaturedUpdates : Open windows update dialog and shows the featured updatesPowerPoint: Administering Windows Update Via PowerShell
Powershell will give you the most flexibility in installing windows updates. The other methods are fine for simply downloading and installing all updates. However, with the PowerShell cmdlets, you can do things like get a list of updates, search for updates with a specific word in them, then only install those updates.
Step 1: Install the module from the gallery by running
Install-module PSWindowsUpdate
Step 2: Import the windows update module
Import-Module PSWindowsUpdate
Step 3: Install the Microsoft Update service.
Note: This can also be done via the command
Add-WUServiceManager -ServiceID 7971f918-a847-4430-9279-4a52d1efe18
Step 4: To get a list of the available cmdlets in the PSWindowsUpdate module with the following command:
Get-command -module PSWindowsUpdateExamples of how to use this tool
1: Download and install updates from Microsoft Update, then reboot:
Get-WUInstall –MicrosoftUpdate –AcceptAll –AutoReboot
2: Check if a reboot is required
Get-wurebootstatus
3: To view available Updates from the Microsoft catalog
Get-WUInstall-MicrosoftUpdate – ListOnly
USOClient: Administering Windows Update Via USOClient
USO stands for Update Session Orchestrator. The usoclient.exe file or the Windows 10 Update Orchestrator, is located in the System32 folder. This tool was introduced in Windows 10 and Server 2016 and it replaces the deprecated WUACLT tool.
Ensure to run these commands with the Admin rights (elevated command prompt)
usoclient.exe StartScan usoclient.exe StartDownload usoclient.exe StartInstall usoclient.exe RefreshSettings usoclient.exe ResumeUpdate usoclient.exe ScanInstallWait usoclient.exe StartInteractiveScan usoclient.exe RestartDevice
I hope you found this blog post helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comment session.
