Powershell Remote: Microsoft.Update.Session, Access Denied: 0x80070005

Question

I've written a script to search/download/install Windows Updates on a machine using the Microsoft.Update.Session COM Object. When run locally it works just fine, however when running through a remote session or through Invoke-Command I receive an access denied (0x80070005) error on Microsoft.Update.Session.CreateUpdateDownloader()

I receive the same error if I attempt to create a Downloader object directly, code to reproduce the issue:

$oUpdateDownloader = new-object -com "Microsoft.Update.Downloader" 

I am an administrator on the remote machine, and passing credentials (for myself explicitly or any other admin account) to the machine does not seem to change anything.

I've seen this error posted a number of times but there does not seem to be any information on solving the problem...

Any ideas?

Answer 1

This is a known issue. It appears that there is a bug with the actual COM object itself, as this issue occurs when using VBScript, PowerShell, and even C#. There is a good article that discusses managing Windows Update with PowerShell that can be found here.

The workaround is to set up a scheduled task on the computer and you can invoke that task however you see fit.

Answer 2

Use PsExec (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553.aspx) to remotely execute PowerShell with a script file:

psexec -s \\remote-server-name C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe \\server\script.ps1

I used the script detailed at http://www.ehow.com/how_8724332_use-powershell-run-windows-updates.html, and I can remotely execute it using psexec to download and install updates.