Can I get more information on what Windows Update is doing?

Question

It often happens that I have to watch this screen for minutes:

I have no clue what's happening in the back. And I'm also not interested in watching the WindowsUpdate.log for changes.

I would love to know if there's a way that gives more feedback. Preferably something I can invoke from the command line (like apt-get).

Solution 1

In Windows 10, you can use the PSWindowsUpdate PowerShell module.

> Install-Module PSWindowsUpdate
> Get-WindowsUpdate
> Install-WindowsUpdate

Solution 2

You can invoke Windows Update from command line using wuauclt.exe utility located in %windir%\system32\ folder.

To check for updates,

wuauclt.exe /detectnow

To check and update,

wuauclt.exe /detectnow /updatenow

This will not work if you have set "Never check for updates" in Windows Update settings. Also probably automatic updates must be enabled for '/updatenow' switch to work (install updates).

In versions of Windows prior to Windows 10, you can also start the GUI for Windows Update by entering following command (located in %windir%\system32\ folder):

wuapp.exe

This only opens the update application and checks available updates, it does not install them. Also if you have set "Never check for updates" in Windows Update settings, this does not checks for updates too, you will have to click the "Check for updates" button.

Solution 3

I found some great suggestions when looking into How to to Install Windows Updates on Windows Server 2008 R2 Core.

One suggestion I really liked, is the WUA_SearchDownloadInstall.vbs script.

Available Updates being listed

Update Installation

Solution 4

You can use wusa.exe which is part of Windows 7.

I wanted to remove the Windows 10 Update icon from the taskbar, so I wrote this AutoHotkey script which invokes wusa.

wusa := "c:\windows\system32\wusa.exe"
runwait %wusa%  /uninstall /kb:2952664 /norestart
runwait %wusa%  /uninstall /kb:3021917    /norestart
runwait, %wusa%  /uninstall /kb:3035583 /norestart
msgbox, okay, all done!`rDon't forget to -hide- the updates now.

So you can use wusa.exe to manage Windows updates and install .msu files.

Here are the commandline parameters for wusa: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/262841

wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:123456 /quiet /norestart
wusa.exe Windows6.1-KB123456-x86.msu /quiet /norestart

This page has a collection of other ways to manage updates from the commandline.

This page explains how wusa.exe works.

To see what updates are installed (via commandline):

systeminfo | find ": KB"

Solution 5

I'm using WuInstall. It is a command line tool for managing Windows Updates. You have many great options like displaying the installation progress, to specify if you want a reboot and when, and logfiles are available for every process. Regards

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Comments

[jww]

This might apply when Get Windows 10 hijacks the update process. See How to install security updates after “Upgrade to Windows 10” hijacks Windows Update?

[Oliver Salzburg]

Another option would be WSUS Offline.

[jww]

Its really sad that I am here looking at this answer because malware known as Update to Windows 10 has hijcaked the update process, and I can't install security updates.

[bgmCoder]

There are a number of reasons why Windows Updates might quit working, and a number of solutions, I would be happy to answer, but this is not the right topic... Just suffice to say that in the end, I wanted offline updates and ended up doing this: forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/… which works quite well!

[wjandrea]

On Windows 7, wuauclt.exe doesn't seem to print any output to cmd.

[Charles Burge]

Works in Windows 7 too. :)

[MarcusUA]

Great! Just need to update script to disable prompts, or add command line switches.

[Whome]

Win10 restricted due to a script policy. Start ps-console as admin Powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted then run given commands. Probably need to run Import-Module PSWindowsUpdate before Get-WindowsUpdate. This policy applies to this PS session only.

[BaseZen]

I found the more reasonably restrictive Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned which is also persistent (going into the Local Poilcy object) docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/…

[YumYumYum]

How to tell in 2018 (Windows 10 home) install updates but never in 8AM till 6PM?

[YumYumYum]

But its not FREE?????

[not2qubit]

This is weird. On Win8.1 I get: Install-Module : The term 'Install-Module' is not recognized... and Get-WindowsUpdate : The term 'Get-WUList' is not recognized....

[not2qubit]

Same on W8.1...no output

[not2qubit]

Didn't work in old PS 5+ but works now in PWSH 6.1.1.

[metamorphosis]

Does this trigger the 'opt-in' to the beta program on Windows 10, in the same way that manually checking for updates does? (digitaltrends.com/computing/windows10-check-for-updates)

[metamorphosis]

Does this trigger the 'opt-in' to the beta program on Windows 10, in the same way that manually checking for updates does? (digitaltrends.com/computing/windows10-check-for-updates)