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Running Multiple Instances

PostPosted: 01.02.2017, 07:17
by PaulNM
How safe is it to run multiple instances of UpdateGenerator.exe? (From different folders, of course.) Are the variables and temp folders local or global?

I have separate copies for Windows, Windows Vista, and Office updates. At the moment I run downloads on them sequentially. It would be nice to run all of them at the same time.

Re: Running Multiple Instances

PostPosted: 01.02.2017, 14:10
by Dalai
The variables are valid only in the specific CMD window, but the %TEMP% directory is used by all instances, of course. Some files from the catalog (wsusscn2.cab) are extracted to %TEMP%, and will be deleted after the script is done with them. So, I'd say: No, it's not safe to run multiple instances.

The only exception would be to run each instance with a different %TEMP% directory. I see two options to achieve this:
  • Run each instance as a different Windows user; this can either be on the same system or on another machine like a VM
  • Open CMD, set %TEMP% and %TMP% env variables to a different dir, and run wsusoffline\cmd\DownloadUpdates.cmd with the appropriate parameters
However, I'm not sure whether or not the latter will really work because it uses VBS scripts which might get %TEMP% location in a different way (not by env variables).

Regards
Dalai

Re: Running Multiple Instances

PostPosted: 02.02.2017, 11:31
by WSUSUpdateAdmin
Hi.

Dalai wrote:[...]So, I'd say: No, it's not safe to run multiple instances.[...]

Exactly.

PaulNM wrote:[...]At the moment I run downloads on them sequentially. It would be nice to run all of them at the same time.[...]

Why?
It won't be quicker in parallel than sequentially, because bandwidth is supposed to be the limiting factor.

RTW

Re: Running Multiple Instances

PostPosted: 04.03.2017, 19:30
by hdneuenfeldt
i can download with 200 MBit and then the parallel download can be much quicker than the sequential. So it would be fine to do it parallel ...

Re: Running Multiple Instances

PostPosted: 09.03.2017, 15:56
by Gerby
Hi!

Maybe using ARIA2 instead of wget could be an option for you!? As I remember, this tool can split the download into several streams. However, I'm not sure if there's any additional configuration work needed - and I don't have any experience with that tool.

If you want to try: Run ./cmd/ActivateAria2Downloads.cmd once. Afterwards ARIA2 is used. Switching back to wget later on is possible.

Greetz
Gerby