[MDT] ZTIWindowsUpdate.wsf fails on Windows 11 Task Sequence

[DavR]

I know it's not officially supported, but, it does (mostly) still work, and I know others are deploying Windows 11 successfully through MDT, so I thought I'd ask the question here

 

I've nearly completed our Task Sequence to roll out Windows 11 23H2 in MDT, and everything seems to be working, except the Windows Update step. This fails with the following error in the logs:

 

 

Has anyone ever seen this error with ZTIWindowsUpdate? It's pointing to our in-house WSUS server, and gets as far as registering its presence, but, doesn't report or download updates. I've tried it without the WSUS server and let it go out to Windows Update on the Internet, and that fails in the same way, which suggests it's something around the script/Win11, rather than our WSUS server, that's causing the issue.

 

Any help, or alternative strategies for installing latest upgrades in a task sequence, gratefully received! I've seen a couple of powershell scripts that claims to do it, but nothing I can use.

[DavR]

Just to confirm.... I just ran a Windows 10 build using much the same process, and that works fine.

 

It's something between vbscript, Windows Update, and Windows 11.....

[locksat]

It appears to have been caused by a regression in a recent Windows update: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/july-9-2024-kb5040442-os-builds-22621-3880-and-22631-3880-0864308e-61cc-413b-8194-0294331aba52. Scroll down to Known issues in this update.

 

Seems like Microsoft released KB5040527 on the 25th to fix it properly, because when I last looked at it there was a Known Issue Rollback GPO you could download & apply instead (which we could not get to work in our deployment sequence).

[DavR]

Well spotted @locksat, that known error contains my error code exactly.

 

KB5040527 looks to be a preview of August cumulative update? I'll have a play and let you know if I found out anything useful.

[DavR]

So, I added updated KB5040527 (Aug CU Preview) to my Windows 11 image, and, it works perfectly with ZTIWindowsUpdate now.

 

Except, the reason is works perfectly well, it that there are no updates to download and install from WSUS in the first place - as KB5040527 is the most up to date update - so it can't error during the download

 

Thus, I won't know if this fix works until there are new Windows Updates to install.

 

Must admit I'm a bit wary about rolling out an image with a preview CU package installed. Might go back to my April image, which in theory shouldn't have the bug in it in the first place. That would resolve the bug during the Task Sequence. It may pick it up again through the next update, but at that point I don't mind, as I'm no longer trying to install updates via script, and can allow the usual mechanisms to take over.