virtual machines and windows update

Question

I have windows datacenter on my root partition, that installed windows update.

I have enterprize on my children, they will not update. For them to update should they be datacenter too, or can you not install windows updates on virtual machines?

root partition is not activiated.

Also, have no roles or features installed on my children.

Thanks

Found a solution, gathering the updates manually from http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/home.aspx

But would still like to sort the reason why the it didn't check for updates properly

The problem is outdated driver on the virtual machine bus virtual adopter, when you in stall windows server 20008 service pack 1 the driver gets updated and you can use windows update to download and install your updates automatically. You can find sp1 on the catalog link above.

Thanks for the help

Solution

Virtual Machines should be able to download updates just fine. Remember the VM is a totally different "computer" just running on top of a host machine.

That being said I found a similar problem posted on Experts Exchange and the resolution there had to do with TCP Offloading on the NIC:

Cracked it!

I had to disable offloading. It's an HP NIC, but from what I can see...it's basically a Broadcom board branded HP. There have been problems with Broadcom Teaming with VMs.

I'm going to slowly enable Large Send Offload 1 & 2, TCP and UDP Checksum Offload, and Large Receive Offload on the NICs and see which ones cause the problem. I'm suspecting LRO is the only one that needs disabled, but since it's working, I'm going to slowly back it up to a non-working point.

I wonder if we still get billed from MS for the "fix"? :p

Some of the places I found information:

http://www.confusedamused.com/notebook/broadcom-nic-teaming-and-hyper-v-on-server-2008-r2/

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winserverhyperv/thread/7cd57f60-680e-4d3f-bcdd-a60c8d493912

I would check out your network settings and see if there is any issue along those lines. Out of curiosity, what brand server is it?

Comments

[Zapto]

Are you talking about WSUS or Windows update?

[ELSheepO]

What is WSUS? When server manager comes up I go to "confirgure update" in the security section, so i presumed its windows update

[Massimo]

Do they have Internet connectivity? How is your networking configured?

[ELSheepO]

Internet is up and running, IPv4 enabled, IPv6 disabled.

[Zapto]

@ELSheepO How have you configred the updates? To Download and install, Just download etc? What happens when you go to update.microsoft.com ? Also what OS's are you running on the guest?

[ELSheepO]

Check, but choose to download and install them the same as the host. When I go to update.microsoft.com it opens the windows update screen, but still doesn't download anything. The guests are on win2k8 R2 enterprise, the host is datacenter.

[ELSheepO]

Its a Dell PowerEdge, with intel Gigabit NIC

[ELSheepO]

Do you know if its on the virtual network adapters, the adapters on the VM or the phyiscal adapter, that those settings need to be changed? I can't see the answer on Experts Exchange cos I can't pay for it. Thanks

[Brent Pabst]

The TCP Offload settings would be on you're physical host adapter, so configured on the host partition. I see you posted an answer, but you never really resolved the original problem, maybe there was an updated network driver for your host that was contributing?

[ELSheepO]

Would that not mean I wouldn't have been able to do the updates on the host? Though you could be right, as I think the service pack was installed when I was installing the OS.

[Brent Pabst]

I'm not exactly sure what the problem is, but from the post I saw over a EE, it looks like there were issues with just the guests with specific hardware that had TCP offload capabilities. Sounds like it might be a driver-related issue.

[ELSheepO]

Made a new VM to check the driver details of a new adaptor, there is a difference in version between pre update and post update don't have a new ip for today, so I'll check most likly monday.

[ELSheepO]

When I go to update the driver, windows thinks it at the best update, But when you install windows server 2008 R2 Service pack 1 the driver gets updated. Am going to delete my answer and update the question