Stations Not Showing In Update Services [WSUS]

[6Foot2]

We have recently enabled and started using WSUS [updating station-by-station or at imaging time historically]

 

It all looks very promising except for the fact that so few of my stations/laptops are showing up in Computers/All Computers [nearly half my computers are not shown!]

 

I can't find any way to force a 'missing' station to appear in WSUS. Can anyone help?

 

Server O/S: Windows 2003 Standard: SP2.

 

Workstion/Laptop O/S: Windows XP Pro: SP 2 or SP3.

 

XP Firewall is turned off by Group Policy.

 

Thanks.

[jmcdermott]

we had the same issue, thinking back i think it was due to the workstations needing windows update software installed on them, this software is installed first time you try to upgrade using the web.

 

On a machine that is not being seen, run windows update, allow it to update the update software (Windows installer 3.1 or something like that.) no need to install any other updates then restart the workstation.

 

Hope this helps.

[Jiser]

Try this? Works for us.

 

REGEDIT /s wsus.reg

 

c:\windows\system32\wuauclt.exe /detectnow

 

gpupdate /force /boot

 

Plus download the latest WSUS client version - 3.0 I think?

 

Had to delete/re register the susclientI.D. in registry and also that helped as well.

Edited May 18, 2009 by Jiser

[Geoff]

Also the log file, C:\Windows\Windows Update.log might tell you why it's not working.

[Crispin]

Also, you can run the WSUS client diagnostic tool found here:

 

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services Tools and Utilities

[mrforgetful]

I used WSUS for a week.

 

It applied an update to all 600 machines one weekend, an update which stopped them logging into the network. I had to go around and uninstall it from all 600.

 

I'm just glad it let me, if I remember correctly some updates aren't removeable at all.

 

Now I don't bother, would rather image them with all updates checked.

[ces973]

I had an issue with WSUS where all my SID's were the same from imaging machines, and looked like most of my machines weren't showing up on the server, but were still locked down by GP and getting updates. I used this in a batch file, and set it to run on logon, and most of my machines came back...

 

@echo on
net stop wuauserv
REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate" /v PingID /f
REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate" /v AccountDomainSid /f
REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate" /v SusClientId /f
net start wuauserv
wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow

 

The latest version is 3.0SP1. There is SP2 out, but I think it's still in the beta/RC stage.

[6Foot2]

Hi,

 

None of the suggestions above worked for me. However I have found a solution that seems to do the job [We are using Server 2008]

 

1. Goto Group Policy and create a new policy or edit existing [depedning on your preference] Goto Computer Configuration/Policies/Admin Templates and right click. Here select Add/Remove Templates and locate wuau.adm [i downloaded this template a little while ago: Can't remember where from but I will attach a copy of it to this post: Extension changed from .ADM to .TXT to allow for attaching] Click OK to accept the import.

 

2. Goto Computer Configuration/Policies/Admin Templates/Windows Components/Windows Update and set your Windows Update Policy as needed/desired.

 

3. Again in Group Policy go to the OU/OUs you want to enforce the WSUS find for [i did this right at the top of my domain because there were so many stations missing from WSUS] Goto Computer Configuration/Policies/Windows Settings/Startup. Create a batch file which will run when the station logs on.

 

Contents of the batch file:

 

@echo on

net stop wuauserv

REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate" /v PingID /f

REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate" /v AccountDomainSid /f

REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate" /v SusClientId /f

net start wuauserv

wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow

 

4. To hurry things along you might want to 'gpupdate /force'

 

Just be aware that my stations seemed to take forever after restarting with this new policy in place so you might want to experiment before rolling this out acroos the network. Once all of the stations are in WSUS I will stop enforcing the policy and I will have my WSUS deploying all of the critical updates to all my stations [hopefully]

 

Contents of wuau.adm [Attached]

 

Hope this helps [sure solved the issue for me ]

wuau.txt

[OverWorked]

I've just come across the same problem with one machine here.

 

I deleted the reg keys (ces973's post above) and ran

wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow 

but just got DCOM 10005 errors in the system log.

 

Then I found this.

 

I ran the script below to stop the service (it wasn't running anyway) and re-register all the dll's.

 

net stop wuauserv
regsvr32 /s wuapi.dll
regsvr32 /s wups.dll
regsvr32 /s wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 /s wuaueng1.dll
regsvr32 /s wucltui.dll
regsvr32 /s wuweb.dll
regsvr32 /s jscript.dll
regsvr32 /s atl.dll
regsvr32 /s softpub.dll
regsvr32 /s msxml3.dll
net start wuauserv

 

Then I ran

wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow 

and it's all working! Two weeks of hair ripping over!

 

I don't know if this'll help you, but I hope it does. I'm posting it here for reference anyway.

[OverWorked]

I've just found another neat trick when all the above failed.

 

Open IE and go to update.microsoft.com on each affected client and let it install the latest Windows Update client. You don't need to actually install any other updates.

 

Run wuaulclt /detectnow (or leave it to do it itself) and the machine will register with the WSUS server and download and install updates like it should.

 

I found this this week with a room full of newly ghosted machines (all XP SP3) in one of the schools I look after. None of them were registering with WSUS or downloading updates. The WSUS client diagnostic tool showed no problems on the clients, though.

 

This probably won't work in every case; but it worked here, and is worth a try.

[p858snake]

I've just found another neat trick when all the above failed.

 

Open IE and go to update.microsoft.com on each affected client and let it install the latest Windows Update client. You don't need to actually install any other updates.

 

Run wuaulclt /detectnow (or leave it to do it itself) and the machine will register with the WSUS server and download and install updates like it should.

 

I found this this week with a room full of newly ghosted machines (all XP SP3) in one of the schools I look after. None of them were registering with WSUS or downloading updates. The WSUS client diagnostic tool showed no problems on the clients, though.

 

This probably won't work in every case; but it worked here, and is worth a try.

 

Where the images sysprep'ed before deployment or newsid'ed after deployment?

[OverWorked]

Where the images sysprep'ed before deployment or newsid'ed after deployment?

 

I don't know. The supplier did them before I worked there. I think they were syspreped before deployment.

 

I tried newsid on a few (and all of the above suggestions) but it wouldn't get them going.

 

I'd given up on WSUS for these machines and I just decided to manually update them from the MS update site as a last resort. I was surprised when they immediately registered themselves with the WSUS server and began downloading.

[p858snake]

I don't know. The supplier did them before I worked there. I think they were syspreped before deployment.

 

I tried newsid on a few (and all of the above suggestions) but it wouldn't get them going.

 

I'd given up on WSUS for these machines and I just decided to manually update them from the MS update site as a last resort. I was surprised when they immediately registered themselves with the WSUS server and began downloading.

 

NewSID won't do it because it only does certain infromation, where as sysprep does everything to make it's think it's a new install (You can tell if its sysprep because on the first boot of the image it should come up with a "mini" setup that may not have any options depending on the answer file).

[Dos_Box]

WSUS Is one of those wonderful services that either has you tearing your hair out or singing its praises from the rooftops!

I have always found it to be a wonderful time saving tool when working, but by God when it goes belly up it's always a day job to set right again!

[john]

Must admit I agree with DB, before the summer our WSUS setup was not that good, it showed some machines but around 80% of them never were up to date, major fails on updates, dropping in and out but now we have reinstalled near enough everything, its really much improved.

[srochford]

NewSID won't do it because it only does certain infromation, where as sysprep does everything to make it's think it's a new install (You can tell if its sysprep because on the first boot of the image it should come up with a "mini" setup that may not have any options depending on the answer file).

 

Sadly, I'm not sure that that's quite true - one of the things that doesn't seem to be sorted by sysprep is the WSUS ID - hence all the suggestions in this thread for deleting the WSUS info.

 

What I do is make the image, run sysprep and shutdown. I then boot the machine using Windows PE and delete the registry keys mentioned (you need to load the hive c:\windows\system32\config\software to get at them - there's no point deleting stuff from the WinPE registry!)

 

I also delete the contents of c:\windows\softwaredistribution - this cleans out all the software used by Windows update but when the service starts in the newly deployed image it will find this is missing and fetch a new copy from the server.

 

This time in WinPE is also good just to clean up - remove any temp files which don't need to be there, any log files in C:\windows (windowsupdate.log is a good one; you then know that anything in it is actually relevant to your newly booted image but I think every log file in c:\windows can go)

 

You can also delete pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys (if it's there). On a machine with 4Gb of RAM these 2 files can add 8Gb to your image size (although you don't need to worry if you're using ImageX - it doesn't include those files)