[solved] /autoreboot behavior on XP Home

[harry]

As per http://forums.wsusoffline.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2691
I expected doupdate to find patches, install, reboot when necessary, then carry on
by itself when the system came up. This doesn't seem to be happening -
did I misunderstand? Is something missing? Or is XP Home a problem?

I have to have just about everything, so I ask for all the software install
options on command line. I know that IE8 & at least some of the .net
installs are going to need separate reboots. /autoreboot does allow
the doupdate process to reboot the host when one of these installs is
done, but the install doesn't continue on its own. When I log in
I can continue it by hand, & it does know that the earlier product
is installed & doesn't re-install.

The effect of this is I have to run doupdate over & over by hand until
it's finally exhausted ( a little like Windows Update :^). I think it takes
4-5 runs before it's there. Any advice appreciated.

[boco]

I just checked with a freshly installed WinXP Pro and it didn't work for me, either.

The error message in the log is: "Saving of Winlogon registry hive failed"

Is yours the same? The log is in the C:\Windows directory.


EDIT: I digged a little deeper and it seems WSUSOU uses REG.EXE EXPORT to export the keys. The problem seems to be that the REG.EXE of Windows XP does not support the /y switch WSUSOU uses and the operation fails.

[cecinit]

The problem seems to be that the REG.EXE of Windows XP does not support the /y switch WSUSOU uses and the operation fails.

I use reg.exe /f in my own scripts. But my use is for registry updating.

The error message in the log is: "Saving of Winlogon registry hive failed"

Is yours the same? The log is in the C:\Windows directory.

Yes! 2nd to last line.

[cecinit]

It looks like WXP reg.exe will export without requiring confirmation without
any parameter switch on command line, but anything (like /y) will cause either
an error with this message "Error: Invalid command-line parameters"
or "Invalid key name".

I haven't yettried to find the specific operation WSOU is doing however.

[boco]

WSUSOU is using /y - that's what I meant.

[cecinit]

I tried this on Windows 7 - here it is happy with /y, & /y is required when
the export file already exists and needs to be overwritten. (Presumably
does nothing when no file present.)

On XP, /y cannot be used at all & doesn't help if the export file already exists.
If you try to overwrite on XP, get this error message:
Error: Cannot create a file when that file already exists.

The safest thing, probably, is for the product to delete the target export
file & not use /y.

I can't find where it's used in wsusoffline.

[cecinit]

I can't find where it's used in wsusoffline.

windows y search bleh

They're in PrepareRecall.cmd

%REG_PATH% EXPORT "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" %SystemRoot%\woubak-winlogon.reg /y >nul 2>&1
...
%REG_PATH% EXPORT "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System" %SystemRoot%\woubak-system-policies.reg /y >nul 2>&1

I don't know if there are any others or other reg misfires. I'll try later to see if deleting the file & removing /y will cause the
process to continue.

[boco]

Summary of this topic and our findings: REG.EXE on Windows 6.1 kernels (and most probably 6.0 kernels, too) happily accepts the /y switch. Windows XP REG.EXE does not and throws an error. This currenly breaks /autoreboot.

[WSUSUpdateAdmin]

Hi!

Sorry for late response, I've been busy.
Also thank you both for investigation!

This bug came in by r378 ("Installation part will now suppress Winlogon Legal Notice during automatic recalls") and therefore affects v. 7.4.1 and v. 7.4.2, unfortunately.

However, I just fixed it ( http://trac.wsusoffline.net/browser/trunk (r394)).

Sorry for inconvenience,
thanks again & kind regards
Torsten Wittrock

[cecinit]

BTW, Vista behavior is the same as Windows 7.

Is there a way to obtain this new rev? I am not familiar w/ TRAC except as a browser.
It looks like there is something somewhere called updater.exe that will update
wsusoffline, aber ich habe nur ein bisschen deutsch & I know I am not
following the discussion of it very well.

Thanks, ==mwh