Package Testing

I usually wait a few days when testing packages to see if they are needed by workstations. Performing the detect now should be the only thing you have to do, report now does not really do anything. It does take about 10 to 15 minutes for items to show up in the Patch Manager console. At least that is from the experiences that I have in our environment.

Thanks for the clarification Lawrence, I stand corrected.

A couple of clarifications.

DetectNow -- which can be run from the client's command line, initiated from the Control Panel WUApp, or launched from Patch Manager as a bulk task targeted to multiple machines simultaneously -- will initiate a scan and report status to the WSUS server within 30 minutes.

ReportNow -- does have functionality, but in a very limited sense. IF there are events completed on the client

that have not yet been reported to the WSUS server, the ReportNow function will cause an immediate call to the WSUS server to upload/report those events. ReportNow can be run from the client's command line, or launched from Patch Manager as a bulk task targeted to multiple machines simultaneously. However, two very important notes to make about this function:

• If the Windows Update Agent is busy on the client, the ReportNow request will be IGNORED.
• If there are no events waiting to be uploaded to the WSUS server, the ReportNow request will be IGNORED.

Thus it is critically important that you time the execution of this task with the previous activities targeted to the client. I generally find that scheduling a ReportNow to run about 3-5 minutes after launching the DetectNow works well.

A third methodology you can use for testing against a single system is to launch the Computer Explorer Windows Update Scan function, which will initiate a fresh scan against the WSUS server from that client, and display the detailed results of the scan in the datagrid. Not Applicable updates are suppressed; Applicable updates are displayed, Installation Status is displayed (which should be NotInstalled for a new update), and there is also a column that shows the Approval state of that update for the target computer. (This column is on the far right side of the datagrid, so you'll need to scroll horizontally to find it.)

very cool, thank you for your time on this.  i have been doing the immediate detectnow and scheduling the reportnow for 5 minutes later.  this seems to work relatively quick in most cases.  i believe the 30m delta might be what is causing the inconsistency.  i might start trying an immediate detect now and scheduling a reportnow 3 minutes out, and another 6 minutes.  in addition i will experiment with your computer browser option and see how that works for me.  thank you!  -mark

Hi, Mark.

Thanks for posting this question. Here's a new KB article summarizing Lawrence's recommendations.

SolarWinds Knowledge Base :: How to test software packages before fully deploying them with Patch Manager

Phil

Awesome KB article Phil. Now I have to peruse the KB articles on SolarWinds.