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A question was asked in the WSUS Mailing List (hosted by Shavlik Technologies on www.patchmanagement.org) –   I am using WSUS 2.0 and I was wondering if there was a way to extract the computer hardware information it collects?   Oh yes, this is possible.   You can extract computer hardware data in table ‘dbo.tbComputerTarget’ in SUS database (SUSDB). You can query for the following information;   TargetID        ComputerID    SID     LastSyncTime LastReportedStatusTime      LastReportedRebootTime          IPAddress      FullDomainName        OSMajorVersion        OSMinorVersion        OSBuildNumber          OSServicePackMajorNumber  OSServicePackMinorNumber  OSLocale       ComputerMake          ComputerModel         BiosVersion    BiosName       BiosReleaseDate       ProcessorArchitecture          ClientGuid      RequestedTargetGroupName IsRegistered   For instance, you can query it directly using SQL … Continue reading Extract computer hardware information from WSUS

Many a times folks in WSUS newsgroup want to know if – Is there a way to disable the SSL warning in the To-Do list in WSUSAdmin Console? To Do List   Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) WSUS has detected that you are not using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Microsoft recommends using SSL to secure administration and client to server communications for better security. For more information, see Using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).   I used to answer that as – “That is not documented anywhere!!. We will have to live with that”. But, thanks to Josh (poster in NG) for … Continue reading Disable the SSL warning in the To Do List

lf the logged in user is part of Local Administrators group, then he can use the custom install option to unselect the updates which will be eventually hidden. These updates will not be offered by the WUA at the next detection/scheduled installation time. Scripting Guru Torgeir Bakken has posted an excellent .vbs script to unhide those hidden updates. According to Torgeir Bakken (MVP) If you are afraid that some users will hide some updates using the custom install option, here is a counter-measure you can use if the computers are in an Active Directory domain. Use a script that unhides all … Continue reading Un-hide hidden updates

Steven Manross has created Windows Server Update Services add-ons in the form of an SQL stored procedure and .vbs / Perl scripts to determine if computers currently show as needing updates. The SQL stored procedure (spSRMCountComputersNeedingUpdates.sql) is used in conjunction with the WSUSReport.vbs or (WSUSReport.pl) scripts to automatically notify an admin via email that there are computers needing Windows Security-related updates. In step 1, let’s add the sql stored procedure on WSUS Database Server and in step 2 we will run the .vbs script scripts to automatically notify WSUS Administrator via email that there are computers needing updates. SAMPLE OUTPUT … Continue reading Windows Server Update Services add-ons — by Steven Manross

Brian McCann wants to know a better way to Check the Version of Windows Installer. According to Windows Installer Team blog, “If you want to check the version of the Windows Installer on your system, check the version of MSI.DLL in the Windows\System32 folder. If the version is 3.1.4000.2435, you have the latest version. One common point of confusion is that even if you have the latest version of Windows Installer 3.1 on your system and you type in msiexec.exe /? from a command-window, you will still be told that you are on version 3.1.4000.1823 or 3.1.4000.1830. This is because … Continue reading Checking the Version of Windows Installer

The VBScript code below from Scripting Guru Torgeir Bakken (MVP) checks if the new AU client is needed on the computer, and runs WindowsUpdateAgent20-x86.exe if required in silent mode. Thanks Torgeir. NOTES: Adjust path in the sExePath variable. If the users are local administrators, you can run the script as part of a logon script. Alternatively, if the computers are in an Active Directory domain, you can do it in a computer startup script (with a GPO) that runs as part of the boot up process (before the user logs in). It runs under the system context and has admin … Continue reading VBScript to check if the new AU Client (WUA) is needed and installing it accordingly

So, if you are looking for a report of some/specific or all WSUS Clients, then you might want to check out Rob Dunn‘s script ‘WSUS_Client_Report.vbs‘.  This is really great. For instance, If I want to view a report of all WSUS Client computers in my Active Directory domain, then I can just enter any common letter such as “A” or “.” or “com” or “Domain-Name” in the input box and hit OK. Voila! You will see a report of all WSUS Client computers. This is very sweet. Thanks Rob! NOTES: You must be in the WSUS administrator’s group to see the report, and if you are running … Continue reading WSUS Client Report Script by — Rob Dunn

So, how do you force the update detection? In this blog entry, let’s take a look at some of the techniques. Rob Dunn [WSUS MVP] has created this simple script to force remote computer to perform wuauclt.exe /detectnow using object methods. That’s cool Rob – Thanks again. ‘ —————START CODE—————strComputer = inputbox(“Enter a computer name to run WUA detectnow”,”Invoke detectnow”) if strComputer = “” then wscript.quit on error goto 0 Set autoUpdateClient = CreateObject(“Microsoft.Update.AutoUpdate”,strComputer) AutoUpdateClient.detectnow() wscript.echo “All done.”‘ —————-END CODE—————– For all GUI fans, take a look at WSUS – DETECTNOW 2.0 from WSUS.de. With this GUI Tool, you can trigger detection for … Continue reading WUAUCLT /detectnow – VBS and GUI methods

WSUS.de is yet another WSUS Community Web-Site. This site is hosted in German language and I have used Google Translation (a free service) to translate in English. So here we go WSUS.de in English. My first pick is Check WSUS (version 1.05.04.1). This .vbs script will Check WSUS Client / Windows Update Agent (WUA) Settings for any computer in the network. When you run this script, it will prompt you to enter Computer Name or IP Address of the machine that you want to check. A copy of the script is as follows; ‘———————START———————– ‘ Einstellungen für die automatischen Updates‘ … Continue reading Script to Check WSUS Client / Windows Update Agent (WUA) Settings

How can I Approve multiple updates from WSUSAdmin? You can select more than one update at a time and can simply select the newest one, scroll down, hit shift and selet the oldest one. You should then have them all selected and can approve them all at once. Is there any tool that I can use ? WSUSster is an update approval tool for Microsoft Windows Update Services (WSUS). Take a look at the screenshot on http://www.wsus.nl/images/wsuster_large.png According to the authors of this tool, “A WSUS Server has a very bad interface for approving updates. That’s why we decided to write our own approval … Continue reading WSUSTER Update Approval Tool by — Arjan and Roland