Automatically update Windows fully

Question

I'm working on a project where the goal is to be able to update a windows computer 100%. That means a program or a script that updates windows automatically with no user interaction at all. Ideally a standalone script that can be run from another script.

The reason: I need to update a lot of computers in my line of work. They can be at any patch level and everything from Windows XP to Windows 8. My goal is to start a script, wait/do something else and then find a fully patched computer.

I've solved a lot by finding ZTIWindowsUpdate.wsf in the MDT Task Sequence.

This can be used like this from an admin cmd:

cssript.exe ZTIWindowsUpdate.wsf

My problem so far is that the computer requires a reboot between some of the updates. Probably because of dependencies. ZTIWindowsUpdate.wsf needs to be run as administrator and i can't seem to find a solution to start it as administrator at reboot. Additionally if I get the script to run on startup, how do I stop it, and how do I know when its time to stop it?

Can someone help med with a foolproof solution to this problem?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Don't need to FULL update a Windows OS, most of the updates are not needed, most updates are not relationated with security and we can survive without they, you need to read the description of each update to understand what changes made. FULLY updating a Windows can be negative point of performance in several scenarios.

All that you need is to download your desired updates, then store it in a folder with this batch script:

@Echo off
For %%# in (*.msu) Do (
    Echo: Installing update: %%#
    Wusa "%%#" /quiet /norestart
)
Echo Windows Update finished.
Pause&Exit

Also you can compress the folder (the updates + the script) into a Self executable with winrar to distribute it as a standalone file.

Info:

Wusa.exe is the Windows Update commandline application.

The files are processed one by one, not all at once.

The quiet switch makes the installation silent.

The norestart switch don't restart after installing the update even if needed.

If a update is installed in the OS then is not installed again, without getting an error window or stopping the execution of the script.

PS: See Wusa /? for more switches.

I hope this helps.

UPDATE:

Another alternative is to download and install ALL the updates with WSUS utility.

http://download.wsusoffline.net/

The updates for Win7 x64 (for example) are stored here: "...\wsusoffline\client\w61-x64\glb"

PS: The "DoUpdate.cmd" batch file in the "CMD" dir of the application is what you need if need to automate the task in "background".

Answer 2

The simplest solution to the problem you're describing is to get your script to configure automatic logon for the built-in Administrator account, then add itself to the Startup folder. You do need to know (or reset) the Administrator account password to use this option.

There are many other possibilities, some examples are: use a startup script and psexec; use srvany to create a service that runs your script; use task scheduler to schedule your script to run automatically, either interactively or non-interactively; disable WUA, configure automatic logon for the account you're using, and add your script to the Startup folder.

Note that you'll save time and bandwidth if you can set up a WSUS server or (even simpler, and cheaper if you don't already have a Windows server) a transparent caching proxy. However this won't avoid the need to reboot during the update sequence.

You may find my script useful as an alternative starting point to ZTIWindowsUpdate.wsf, if only because it is smaller and simpler to understand.