Windows Admin Center is a locally deployed, browser-based app for managing Windows servers, clusters, hyper-converged infrastructure, as well as Windows 10 PCs. It is a free product and is ready to use in production. When prompted with an error when trying to access WAC from other browsers saying the site is not secure. In this guide, I will show you how to schedule and run update via Windows Admin Center. See the following links for “How to setup Windows Admin Center, “How to install Chocolatey” and “How to install, upgrade and uninstall software with Chocolatey“. You may also be interested in Winglet, which is also a Windows Package manager “Winglet”. See how to install Winglet and how to install applications with Winglet CLI.
Let’s throw more light on Windows Admin Center installation types in order to have a smooth installation.
- On Windows 10, it uses port 6516 by default, but the option to use a different port is possible. You can have a shortcut created and let Windows Admin Center manage your Trusted Hosts.
- Windows Server, Windows Admin Center is installed as a network service. You must specify the port that the service listens on, and it requires a certificate for HTTPS. Here I am using the default https port (443).
See links for more info on how to install Windows Admin Center (WAC): Windows Admin Center (WAC) Deployment, and how to install Windows Admin Center (WAC) in an unattended mode using a self-signed certificate
Schedule and run updates via Windows Admin Center
To use the update functionality, access the WAC via the url or locally. Click on the Server and Under Tools, and select Updates
Restart Options
Here you have two (2) restart options which are on how to test network connection to the Windows Admin Center (WAC) Gateway, see the link
- Restart immediately and
- Schedule Restart.
Testing the capabilities of schedule restart
– You can search the update catalog for more info on this update you are trying to install http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4534273
Click on install update to continue. After a successful restart, notifications will pop up showing updates that were successfully installed. This will start the search for updates and when found, it will install. From the Admin Center (You can see the progress bar).
Please see how this error was fixed “Certificate Error: Unable to access Windows Admin Center (WAC) from the Web“, and Copying and Downloading ISO image to/from ESXi Datastore, and how to configure SimpleSAMLPHP.
Note: On the desktop where the updates are installed, you will get a push notification displayed on the screen showing updates are being installed.
Also from the settings windows, this change can also be viewed as shown below.
This update will also be shown via the settings window after completion on the Server as shown below. Here you can see the updates have been installed and are pending restart based on the time I have scheduled.
When this completes, it will prompt you with the notification that *You are up to date*.
From the WAC console, you can also see the notification displayed.
Note: If you have updates applied already from WSUS or pulled directly from Microsoft, One way you can test this install update function is to uninstall updates and re-install to test this functionality. For known issues, see the following link.
I hope you found this blog post helpful on how to schedule and run update via Windows Admin Center. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comment session.