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Made a bit of a mess... WSUS on Hyper-V... VHDX - resize?

Koldov

By Koldov
in Windows Server 2012

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Koldov

Koldov

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Ok, so it looks like I've made a lot of errors trying to get this sorted... I'm just wondering if there's a way to salvage it?

 

The story begins when I noticed the (Windows Server) backup failing to back up the Hyper-V server running WSUS.

 

I tried various things after looking into the VSS writers and seeing them fail, after restarting their services they seemed fine but after the backup attempt there would be various ones in error.

 

I was always wary of running WSUS from a Hyper-V instance, but I had stuck with it until this happened.

 

No problem I thought, I will install WSUS and migrate it to the host. This worked (kind of) I probably should have just done fresh installs all round but thought it would be quicker and easier to migrate. So I installed WSUS on the host and set it up as a replica of the WSUS instance on the Hyper-V.... Everything replicated fine and all the updates/computer groups showed up. I changed the GPO for the clients to connect to the new WSUS and they started showing up too! Sorted!

 

At this point I tried to set the new WSUS to autonomous and ticked the part about Synchronizing from Microsoft Update... after a few seconds WSUS crashed and I had to click 'reset server node' for it to recover... this happened multiple times and it would NOT accept being seperated from the original WSUS upstream server on the Hyper-V.

 

There were a couple of things I thought might be causing the issue, possibly limited memory and or disk space. The only way I thought I could free either of those things up was to uninstall WSUS from the Hyper-V....

 

So I did... and here's where the real problems start...

 

Obvious now, but the downstream server on the host just packed up when the Upstream on the Hyper-V was uninstalled.... I thought this would make it easier to switch away from it, but it won't even load the details in the snap-in now!

 

It has also left me with a massive (but practically empty) 500GB fixed VHDX drive that will NOT resize/shrink (as it had grown quite large due to WSUS). I have tried from within the Hyper-V, by shrinking in Disk Management (which in fairness gained c.65GB), but will not let me go any further for some reason (used space on the disk is actually <30GB, but it has the 'cannot shrink due to unmovable files' ), defragging/optimizing then recovering that space by editing the disk in Hyper-V manager.

 

So in fact uninstalling WSUS from the Hyper-V hasn't solved anything at all, just made it a lot worse....

Joanne

Joanne

Posted
Posted
Does the server just have WSUS? If it does might be worth deleting and doing again. If it has other roles, don't delete it though!
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Koldov

Koldov

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Unfortunately it does (trust me I've thought about it though)...

 

I originally set up the Hyper-V to run an instance of SIMS for my Head Teacher (who uses a Mac) to connect to via the Remote Desktop app, but then used it for other things as well because it seemed that Hyper-V was the way to go...

 

Defraggler seems to be doing the job though I've already gained over 100GB back by running a boot time defrag, so just running it on the whole disk now.

 

Looks like I will have to bite the bullet and flatten WSUS on the host as well and start from scratch downloading all the updates and going through the whole approval process...

PyROm

PyROm

Posted
Posted
If you dont want to run third party software you can do a defrag /d, this will defrag the traditional way and move everything to the beginning of the drive, as opposed to the new default way for VHDX which is just to trim.
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free780

free780

Posted
Posted
There is something in the works. A lot of big enterprises will have large complex WSUS/SUP setups. With SCCM you can remove expired updates automatically. I think you have to script it on standalone WSUS. If you just want to delay updates Windows Update for Business might work for you but you need the bandwidth.
MartinT

MartinT

Posted
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You need WSUS Automated Maintenance by AJ Tek, it's excellent and keeps WSUS properly up to date and shrunk. We run WSUS in a VM and it works the way it always should have done.
mavhc

mavhc

Posted
Posted
WU are shared on LAN between computers now. Plus it means they'll get updates when at home, which was my main problem, laptops that never get updated, and never report to WSUS, so I don't even know their status.
Oaktech

Oaktech

Posted
Posted

Also AdamJ CleanWsus script on autorun...

 

I think he's started charging for it, but I've got a version.

 

Personally I'd scrap everything and start again, last time I did one it took about 20 minutes to stand it up and about 2 hours to sync it.

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