WSUS is Like A Box of Chocolates

Windows Software Update Services (WSUS) is one of the more entertaining products Microsoft has created, if by entertaining you mean trying to put logic behind the installation of some relevant subset of 4,381 updates (today's total).

WSUS 3.0 has been out for a while now, and was supposed to work well together with the built-in Windows Update in Windows Vista. But, the combo seems to require a fair bit of work still. For over a month now, I have been offered the Windows Live Toolbar 3.01 Critical Update on one of my systems. If I install it, the computer soon nags me to install it again. How many times do you really need to install this update before it finally takes? Apparently more than the 16 times I've done it in the past 24 hours:

What will it take before WU/WSUS decides it is there? Evidently 16 installs was not enough because it just offered it again. It must be 17... Nope. 18? ...

But, the fun with WSUS does not stop there. A few years ago some of us remember Windows Update offering the Critical Update offered so that the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves game would play correctly. I suppose for some subset of parents who let their children play such things, and senior management at Disney, that update really was critical. For the rest of us, the criticality of that particular patch was somewhat lower.

This morning, WSUS surprised  me again. It just offered Network Monitor 3.1, to all computers. Now, personally, I really like Network Monitor 3. It is a vast upgrade over previous versions, and if you are into analyzing packet traces, you really ought to try it. It was just quite surprising to see it offered on WSUS. Because I was intending to install netmon anyway I decided to accept it. I'm not sure whether that is why my Vista machine just blue screened or not, but it did. During the install process the computer hung. Then the screen went black. I hit the power button to see if sleep would work as I have found that sometimes clears things. After spinning for about 30 seconds the blue screen appeared, reporting an internal power failure. I'm about to try it again. Wish me luck!

WSUS is a nearly endless source of entertainment. You never quite know what your are going to get offered. If it could only offer the Hold 'Em Poker game it would truly be endless.

Published Fri, Jul 6 2007 7:04 AM by jesper
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Comments

# Philip Elder said on 06 July, 2007 10:19 AM

Heh ... Hold 'Em was released via WSUS early this year!

:D

Philip

# Mike said on 06 July, 2007 10:25 AM

I've also been hit with the "but I installed this twice already!" problem - not with the Windows Live Toolbar though...I believe it was an Office update.

# Scott Klassen said on 06 July, 2007 10:26 AM

The NetMon 3.1 install did something similar to my Vista Ultimate system.  Upon initiating the install, the computer slowed to a complete crawl and disabled my network connection.  Twice, my video driver failed and restarted.  I ssslllooowwwwlllyyy initiated a shutdown, but after waiting 10 minutes gave up.  Did a power button shutdown.  After restarting, things were still very flakey and slow, so I did the power button kill again.  On the next startup, everything worked fine including NetMon 3.1.

# Jeff said on 06 July, 2007 02:51 PM

I'm planning on upgrading to WSUS 3 here at my company.  Currently I'm on 2.0.  Should I do this or not?  I've read other comments about it being a memory hog.  Not sure what to think.  I had enough fun this week with Trunk Monkey.  (www.trunkmonkey.com)

# Neilcar said on 06 July, 2007 11:45 PM

The issue with the toolbar being reoffered looks like it's not being installed properly or not being detected properly.  WSUS really has nothing to do with that -- it's al done by the Windows Update Agent (WUA) on the client machine.

(Dirty secret -- WSUS doesn't actually _do_ anything.  It's an ASP.Net web service that sits and waits for clients.

WUA does all the work from the client side.  It checks in to see what updates are available, checks to see what the client needs/already has installed, downloads the updates, and installs them as appropriate.)

Check %windir%\WindowsUpdate.log and see if the toolbar is failing to install.

# jesper said on 07 July, 2007 12:06 AM

Neil, yeah, I know the magic is mostly in WUA not WSUS. Howeve,r the combination is what yields such entertaining results.

I looked at the logs, and it sure looks like the update succeeds to me. Although, the log is well past a megabyte, so it is hard to hone in exactly on what is interesting. The system event log seems really clear though:

Log Name:      System

Source:        Microsoft-Windows-WindowsUpdateClient

Date:          7/6/2007 16:16:10

Event ID:      19

Task Category: Windows Update Agent

Level:         Information

Keywords:      Success,Installation

User:          SYSTEM

Computer:      <cleared>

Description:

Installation Successful: Windows successfully installed the following update: Critical Update for Windows Live Toolbar 3.01 (KB926295)

# HIlton Travis said on 07 July, 2007 08:56 AM

Really, Space Cadet Pinball (for Vista owners) would be a better thing to put out on WSUS as many, many people are disappointed that it was removed and not replaced with another pinball program.

# Eric Eskam said on 23 July, 2007 12:37 PM

Hey Jesper - glad to see you posting again!

Michael Espinola's script here:

www.espinola.net/.../So_you_want_to_fix_all_your_WSUS_clients

is great at resetting WSUS clients - either individually or in a batch.  In a large environment it's a real time saver.