WSUS Syncing 'Old' Updates

[RowlandoGloom]

Hi, I hope everybody is having a good Easter.

 

Here's a quick one as I'm probably being thick.

 

I am running WSUS which appears to be doing everything it says on the tin. When updates are synced, I receive an email with a list. A large chunk of updates which have been downloaded are months old. I've been running it for about 2 years so it doesn't need to catch up with anything. There are links to security updates published back in 2014. The malicious software removal tool is often 6 months out of date.

 

Is this just me being thick?

 

Cheers,

Paul.

[ZeroHour]

Have you ran the Server Cleanup wizard in options at all?

It marks ones that are superseded and gets rid of old updates.

[minimoo]

if there's any devices getting turned on that don't have the updates (e.g. laptop in cupboard that's used once a year) they might be keeping old updates knocking around - as the cleanup wizard (At least in wsus3) used to ignore updates that were still required by 1 client in the last 30 days

 

And as an additional note, if you haven't been running the cleanup wizard at all, i'm pretty sure i found that i ended up with some obviously dead updates that hadn't been marked by Microsoft as superseded so they were being kept around. Although, need to be careful at that point that it is really a mistake and not something that could still be needed. i.e. I had a windows definition update that was a year old and being kept around.

[RowlandoGloom]

I've noticed when looking at the bottom of the KB article, even though the update may be called "August Update for...."' The page itself is 'revised' the day the WSUS syncs.

 

So for example:

Obviously if it's still a live update, PCs built tomorrow may still need it as the Windows image may have been created sooner and not have it. I always thought it was odd that I was being notified of the August update being downloaded today, not August. Then after a bit of digging it looks as if it was originally downloaded in August AND today. I'm assuming it is a 'newer version'of an 'older' live non-redundant update.