forums.wsusoffline.net

How is it going WSUS fellows. Is it okay to run WSUS consecutively until there is "Nothing to do!" and then reboot the machine, or is it advised to reboot after each successful instillation?

WSUS Offline Update will tell you when to reboot the system, which will be after either all missing updates have been installed or the number of updates per stage are reached (whichever comes first). The updates per stage are determined by the amount of RAM in the system (and the OS architecture). It's certainly not necessary to reboot after every single update. There are some exceptions where reboots are required, though: after the installation of prerequisite updates on Win7 and 8.1, and IIRC after the installation of IE11 (on Win7 and Server 2008/2012).

Regards
Dalai

When WOU ends operation and tells you to either reboot and recall (re-run) or just to reboot (when finished), you MUST reboot. Many people are not aware that most updates are not installed immediately - even MS tries to hide that fact. Actually, updates are prepared to be installed during next reboot cycle, a process called "staging".

Actually, updates are prepared to be installed during next reboot cycle, a process called "staging".

So would it be acceptable to run WSUSoffline several times in a row until it says nothing to do and then reboot?

WSUS Offline Update will tell you when to reboot the system, which will be after either all missing updates have been installed or the number of updates per stage are reached

I just did some testing on wsus offline, every time I ran it I double checked against windows update, this was the process;

1) Check Windows Update -> says 5 important updates required
2) Run wsus offline -> it finishes and says reboot and recall
3) Check Windows Update again, the update says failed and 5 important updates still required
I ran wsus offline 3 times, and the third time it says 'Nothing to Do!' so I rebooted but windows update still says 5 updates required, and in update history it says only 1 update was attempted to be installed on 8/02/2019 and it failed.
Why is there a discrepancy between wsusoffline and windows update?

TechnologyTechnician wrote:So would it be acceptable to run WSUSoffline several times in a row until it says nothing to do and then reboot?

No, most likley not. WSUS Offline runs until a system reboot is needed, the number of updates per stage are reached, or it has nothing to do. In the latter case, it's obviously OK to skip the reboot. Only in the second case it would be theoretically possible to run it again without a reboot, but there's a good reason for the number of updates per stage (system memory limit, usage by Windows Update service).

Why is there a discrepancy between wsusoffline and windows update?

There are several. The Update History is pretty useless when installing updates via WSUS Offline, which has been mentioned quite often in the forum. Use the list of Installed Updates instead. Failed updates are not seen as installed (obviously). Furthermore, WSUS Offline only downloads and installs security updates, nothing more. Anything beyond that, like optional updates, are only available via Windows Update.

If updates fail to install, you should try to fix that. If you want us to help you with that, you should post the KB numbers, the contents of C:\Windows\wsusofflineupdate.log, and perhaps C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log (Win7/8.1) or the output of Get-WindowsUpdateLog PowerShell command (Win10).

Regards
Dalai

TechnologyTechnician wrote: So would it be acceptable to run WSUSoffline several times in a row until it says nothing to do and then reboot?

Depending on your system configureation and the updates, which need to be installe, this could cause them to fail and Windows to revert the cchanges effectively causing updates not to be installed.
Some componentes require others (e.g. the Servicing Stack) to be fully installed and not just staged to be able to parse some kind of manifest or similar.
It is not recommended to skip a reboot, when wsusou pauses it's procedure, because that can cause updates to fail. wsusou is designed to require the smallest possible number of reboots, we were able to achieve.