Windows Boards

Wsus Installation And Configuration
10 March 2010, 12:00 am

Patch management is a bit tedious job if you have several hundred systems at your location.For every single system you have to manually configure the Automatic Updates and then that machine will contact the Windows Update server and download the patches,but again your precious bandwidth will get used for each and every machine downloading the patches.WSUS can come handy in this situation.

Recently I installed the WSUS(Windows Software Update Services) for patch management.The software is available for 32 bit OS only.It is not supported on 64 bit OS.I installed the software on 32 Bit Windows 2003 Standard Edition.The installation was fairly simple.IIS(Internet Information Services) must be preloaded on the system.

You can download the wsus from this location

The installation was fairly simple with few configuration steps.During the setup it asks on which website would you like to keep WSUS server.On the default IIS website or the separate website for WSUS administration.I preferred the option with additional website for WSUS.So it gives port 8530 for accessing your WSUS admin panel.The URL for accessing admin panel for WSUS then will be like http://wsus-server:8530/wsusadmin

After regular installation you can access the admin panel by giving the above URL.After starting the WSUS you have to choose for which Microsoft products(OS) you want to keep WSUS services.Then you have to start the synchronization process with the Microsoft update server.WSUS server keeps a record of all the updates on it when the synchronization gets completed.

Then the next step is to add computers in the WSUS server.Here there are two options.If you want the clients to automatically come in specific group you can select that option in

Options >>Computer Options >>

The first one is "Use the Move computers task in Windows Server Update Services" . If you select this option then you have to manually move the computers in the specific group from the Unassigned computers group after it gets detected.

The second one is "Use Group Policy or registry settings on computers" .By selecting this option you can control the assignment of computers on the client side.

There are some settings required to be done at client side.

After running gpedit.msc you have to go to the below path

Computer configuration >> Administartive templates >> Windows update

The main things you will need to modify are

Configure Automatic updates - Select your option as per your choice.I have choosed Auto download and schedule the install.Also configure the suitable timing when the update shouls get installed.

Specify intranet Microsoft Update service location - Specify the path here for the Wsus server you have configured.

There are many options which you can use as per the your requirement at the client side.After saving the changes run

gpupdate /force command from the command prompt to forcefully update the group policy changes you have made.

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