Six flavors of Windows 7 to update

Six flavors of Windows 7 to update

Postby nineballguy » 23.08.2016, 16:03

Hello. First post here. I hope my questions are easy to answer. I have browsed the existing topics, but haven't pulled it all together yet in my head. I will try to keep this short and to the point.

I have six Windows 7 machines. Two are Pro. Four are Home Premium. They were purchased over a period of several years. Some have never been connected to the internet. Some are 32 bit. Some are 64 bit. Some are laptops. Some are desktops. All different hardware. All at different levels of service.

First question:
I understand now that WSUSOU bases its updating on each machine's wsusscn2.cab file. My hope is that I can download a single set of all needed/possible updates for these machines into one set of directories - from yet another (unrelated machine) - and then use updateinstaller on each machine to update it from the common set of updates. Is this possible?

Second question:
How can I customize the updating process to bypass certain updates (e.g. the "spyware" updates)? I saw in one post that there was some sort of blacklist, but I don't know how to use it.
nineballguy
 

Re: Six flavors of Windows 7 to update

Postby boco » 23.08.2016, 17:39

I understand now that WSUSOU bases its updating on each machine's wsusscn2.cab file.
That catalog is not individual to each machine. It's a common catalog usually used in WSUS Servers.
That means, once you downloaded updates and prepared media for both architectures (see below), those media can update machines with different patch levels. The updates that need to be installed on the target machines are determined at Install time. A small note, if you have Windows 7 RTM machines (without SP1), you should include the Service Packs. WSUSOU includes only individual patches since SP1.

Architectures: 32bit vs. 64bit are different OS selections in WSUSOU. Windows 7 32bit is "w61" and 64bit is "w61-x64".


About the Telemetry updates: WSUSOU does only contain and install security-critical updates. Since the Telemetry patches are not security-critical, they aren't included. Also, GWX is no longer offered.
Microsoft update catalog: http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/
Windows Install media download: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/15088/windows-create-installation-media
boco
 
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Re: Six flavors of Windows 7 to update

Postby nineballguy » 23.08.2016, 18:55

Thank you for the clarification about wsusscn2.cab. I should have done a bit more research on that.

I am very pleased that a single set of updates (for a particular architecture) can serve as the source of updates for a variety of machines.

My followup questions are:

1. Given the wide assortment of download options (C++ runtime, .NET, Service Packs, Esseentials, Defender, Office, Legacy, etc), is it advisable to download everything at once - and then presumably cherry pick on the client install side? UpdateGenerator gives me several general selection options (that I can see from the screenshots), but there are also the glb and exclude subdirs (and surely more that I am not aware of). Are these dirs user-editable (for example, to exclude some known faulty or unwanted update)? In other words, will I have the option to not install/update Windows Essentials (for example) even if I have downloaded it onto my update media?

2. I'm thrilled that Telemetry and GWX stuff is not included in WSUSOU downloads. So, is it safe to assume that (except for the odd update that I may need to exclude because it breaks something) that I simply worry too much :?

Thanks again.
nineballguy
 

Re: Six flavors of Windows 7 to update

Postby jonas » 24.08.2016, 16:29

nineballguy wrote:In other words, will I have the option to not install/update Windows Essentials (for example) even if I have downloaded it onto my update media?

Yes. The options for download are independent from the options for installing. You should check a download option only if you will install it of at least one of your six machines. Of course you only can install those updates, which was downloaded before.

Jonas
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Re: Six flavors of Windows 7 to update

Postby boco » 24.08.2016, 22:40

The catalog we use is for corporations using WSUS server to hand-pick and distribute patches internally. Could you imagine what would happen if MS did add the Telemetry to the security-critical catalog? :twisted:
Simply disabling the Diagtrack service and Task will already take away the majority of Telemetry collecting (making the other updates that add Telemetry points do exactly nothing).

And, as I said, GWX is finished and no longer distributed, not even over WU.
Microsoft update catalog: http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/
Windows Install media download: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/15088/windows-create-installation-media
boco
 
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