Keep Windows Clients up-to-date

Usually, Windows clients should install the Updates automatically. Since some clients are always powered on, the Windows installation does not work. For example, if an update requires a reboot, Windows waits forever and no further updates are installed on the computer.

For such cases, we found following solution:

  1. Create a Cron Job, once a Day e.g. every Wednesday early in the morning
  2. The job should have a long runtime. e.g. > 5 hours
  3. Check if a reboot is required
    • if not => Just force the normal Windows Update Installation
    • if a reboot is required => Send a Message to currently logged in user and reboot

We have tested this Cron Job at several customers and the user acceptance was good. Nobody likes to install Windows Updates but with this job we found a good balance between security (=installing the Updates) and needling the users. For special users you can add a Exclude Hardware tag.

Example Job