Does WSUS work on Vista computers which are not logged in?

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tagoso

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#26320 18-Sep-2008 09:23

Hi there,

I have been given the task of getting all the PC's (laptops and desktops) up to date in terms of WSUS updates. It hasn't been managed and there a "quite a few" updates waiting to be installed.
I didn't want to run the updates while everyone is in the office, affecting the bandwidth etc, so was wondering if I set the updates to install just before I go home, will the PC's which are not logged in (but left switched on) be updated?

I know that sometimes (usually?) updates require a machine re-start - will this happen if nobody is logged in to them? Obviously the laptops won't be updated if people take them home....but how about the desktops?

All of the machines are running various versions of Vista, the WSUS version is 3.0, the server is 2003.

Thanks in advance!

Bryan

tonyhughes

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#165272 18-Sep-2008 09:27

How many PCs? Whats your LAN like, and what do people do on it?

I don't leave any unknowns to happen while I am not at the office, I would bite the bullet and maybe get these happening at a low-load time (lunchtime maybe), or if your users are predominantly email, they might not even notice.

gehenna

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#165273 18-Sep-2008 09:31

Pretty sure you can set a group policy to auto-reboot the PC. Updates aren't dependent on someone being logged in, so long as the computer itself is in the appropriate organisational unit and your WSUS is set up to use Group Policy you can pretty much tell it to do whatever you want. I've got it set up to update only when I approve the updates individually, and i have some computers in different groups so i can stagger the updates - minimises risk of having all computers fail due to a certian update, keeps things compartmentalised. Updates install once i approve them but the user has to reboot the PC to complete the update. This means I'm not interrupting them during their day with anything other than the occasionally annoying "updates are installed please restart" message. All users are aware that they need to restart their PC at the end of the day when this happens.

tagoso

30 posts

Geek

#165287 18-Sep-2008 10:33

The network is basically divided into laptops (12) and desktops (17). I can choose to install either of those groups or both of them at the same time. I guess I should consider breaking them down further into sub-groups so I don't end up killing everyone's PC all at once - perhaps even create a WSUS test group of two laptops and two desktops - to observe any bad update results before I send them out to everyone....

Thanks for the advice. I will have a bit more of a think about the whole plan. Cheers!