Windows 10 Always Says Up to Date, But Always Needs Updates
-
@obsolesce said in Windows 10 Always Says Up to Date, But Always Needs Updates:
You click the button to run the update check and process and it then finds updates... seems fine to me. It causes me no issues at all.
Nail on the head. Seems fine to you. You can't be sure, there is no way to be confident. You know the tool doesn't work. So lacking any definitive information, doing this one thing seems reliable because there isn't any way to know.
That's the entire issue summed up.
-
@scottalanmiller I get what your saying. Its windows and how it works/doesn't work. I have never liked it either but if you manage Windows I do not know of a concrete way to really know what the situation is with any given machine. I mean, you can look to see what updates are installed but as far as knowing what is available to install and have it always be accurate, I'm in the dark here too.
-
@jmoore said in Windows 10 Always Says Up to Date, But Always Needs Updates:
@scottalanmiller I get what your saying. Its windows and how it works/doesn't work.
I'm pretty sure that this used to work, though. And I wonder if there isn't some mechanism that doesn't work better that we just typically ignore.
-
@scottalanmiller said in Windows 10 Always Says Up to Date, But Always Needs Updates:
Well, first, IS there a deterministic way to know what the story is?
Nope. My Win10 home computer updates when it updates... I don't have any restrictions in place. When I click the button, i haven't noticed if it finds more updates. If it does, then great.
You might want to listen to that podcast I linked, it explains a lot of the update stuff in there.
It seems that not all PCs are supposed to get updates as soon as they are available. You may have one PC that gets the latest update... then another one that doesn't update for another week. (if you leave it all automatic and do nothing)
But it does appear that if you click the button, it can happen sooner. Who knows.... I don't really care. I know that the 500 or so Win10 computers I manage updates for via WSUS all update when they are supposed to. I also know that both Win10 devices at home update when they update, no restrictions.
I
-
@scottalanmiller Ok I will be thinking about it. I know the powershell module I run has a command that will let me see what updates are out there. I just incorporated it as part of my script I have scheduled.
I will say I have never seen it work reliably before. Win 10 does it better than Win 7. When I first got here we had Win 7 machines that had not got updates in 2 years. My boss's wsus server told him everything was up to date too. I had my own (small) powershell knowledge so started implementing that and suddenly amchines had 200 updates to do
-
@obsolesce said in Windows 10 Always Says Up to Date, But Always Needs Updates:
It seems that not all PCs are supposed to get updates as soon as they are available. You may have one PC that gets the latest update... then another one that doesn't update for another week. (if you leave it all automatic and do nothing)
Ugh, that's awful. A few hours, sure. Weeks? Why are we patching if it isn't important?
-
@obsolesce said in Windows 10 Always Says Up to Date, But Always Needs Updates:
But it does appear that if you click the button, it can happen sooner. Who knows.... I don't really care. I know that the 500 or so Win10 computers I manage updates for via WSUS all update when they are supposed to.
This is the problem. Define "when they are supposed to" and define "I know." These are the two sticking points. How do we know, rather than just hope. And how is "supposed to" defined? If Windows shows the wrong info, "supposed to" seems to be an impossibility. And, likewise, "knowing" seems impossible.
That Windows is designed to go weeks without patching and patch at random or via some algorithm or lotto, that's fine (if documented) if the tools reported correctly and honestly. That they don't means we can't be sure of that.
Maybe this is really meant to be PowerShell only, and no one is taking the time to learn it, and the GUI is just the red headed step child and we don't realize that this is a half assed attempt at showing what PS actually knows?
-
This is really an extension of my general complain with Windows 10 - it's not deterministic. On Fedora, if I use DNF I get the same answer every time, no matter what. I KNOW what info I'm getting, and I know I can trust it. With Windows, I get "some" info but it might be right or wrong, and it isn't the same machine to machine even when the machines are identical and the same tool gives different answers when run multiple times. It's not idempotent. It's unreliable. Same with searching in the Start menu. On Fedora, if I search for something it's the same every time and predictable. On Windows, the thing I'm searching for may or may not appear and is unpredictable. The GUI isn't reliably showing what is going on, you can't trust it. It shows something, but what it is showing, no one seems to be sure.
-
But in PS, I know that if I go to do tab completion or run a command, it's the same every single time. It doesn't change out from under me. I wonder if the updates are similar.
-
And today is now patch Tuesday so all the rules are out the window... and nothing will report right.
-
@scottalanmiller said in Windows 10 Always Says Up to Date, But Always Needs Updates:
Maybe this is really meant to be PowerShell only, and no one is taking the time to learn it, and the GUI is just the red headed step child and we don't realize that this is a half assed attempt at showing what PS actually knows?
I would have to agree with this from my limited knowledge of the subject.
-
This might be a place to start...
https://www.petri.com/manage-windows-updates-with-powershell-module
-
@scottalanmiller Yes thats exactly what i do to manage my updates for the last few years. Its on technet.
-
Latest version is here:
https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/PSWindowsUpdate/2.0.0.4 -
or just stop ignoring my posts...
@obsolesce said in Windows 10 Always Says Up to Date, But Always Needs Updates:
If you want to do automatic Windows updates in a similar way to DNF-Automatic for example, I'd load this module:
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/2d191bcd-3308-4edd-9de2-88dff796b0bc
And then set up a scheduled task to run a script that loads the module and runs
Get-WUInstall. -
@obsolesce said in Windows 10 Always Says Up to Date, But Always Needs Updates:
or just stop ignoring my posts...
@obsolesce said in Windows 10 Always Says Up to Date, But Always Needs Updates:
If you want to do automatic Windows updates in a similar way to DNF-Automatic for example, I'd load this module:
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/2d191bcd-3308-4edd-9de2-88dff796b0bc
And then set up a scheduled task to run a script that loads the module and runs
Get-WUInstall.Too easy
