"Report Now" vs. "Detect Now"

Execute wuauclt /reportnow to update WSUS with the computers status then run wuauclt /detectnow to check for available updates.

Dave

Let me elaborate on workablob's reply...

When you execute "wuauclt /detectnow", you are telling the computer to seek for new updates. If it is a managed computer (under WSUS or Patch Manager), that's what it'll check against; otherwise it would be Microsoft's Update Servers.

When you execute "wuauclt /reportnow", you are telling the computer to inform the WSUS/Patch Manager server of its update status.

For your particular question. I usually do it differently... After I approve an update, I Remote Desktop the computer and from there, execute a /detectnow followed with a /reportnow. Why do I RDP to the computer? If this is a test subject, I like to see "in loco" what's happening with the update. I also have a few "Beta Testers" to be the first deployed computers of any approval and only on the next week, if all goes right, I approve for the rest.

Regards,

Pedro

That's a great way to do it Pedro and that is what I do as well for Workstations and servers.

I just updated a few hundred servers and I swear to get the server to synch up with WSUS after a patch application and reboot was to run detectnow, then reportnow, then detectnow.

It's the only thing that would work.

Dave

Thanks workablob and Pedro.

Do you know if the "Detect Now" and "Report Now" commands in the context menu in Patch Manager do the same thing as wuauclt.exe /detectnow and wuauclt.exe /reportnow on the client? Also, do you know how long it takes for the views in Patch manager to reflect any status updates that have been reported by the clients?

Specifically, I'm looking at the Update Details and the Computers Summary tabs of the update views to see whether my test machines detect a new 3rd party patch as installed, needed, or not applicable, in order to determine if I've configured the rules correctly. I would prefer to do this from the Patch Manager console instead of RDPing to a half dozen machines to run the commands manually and the Detect Now and Report Now context menu commands sound like they should do this but if they do, they don't seem to do it very reliably - after running the commands, the data in these tabs is still outdated and shows no status even after 5 or 10 minutes. They also aren't referenced in the documentation and I haven't been able to get any response from technical support as to what they are supposed to do.

I don't use patch manager so I'm sorry.

Dave

Isn't this the patch manager discussion forum?

Yes, I was just sharing my experience with the switches you asked about.

Sorry if I buggered things up.

Thanks,

David

Not at all! I appreciate your input, I just wanted to be sure that I'm posting in the right forum.

You're in the right place.  I'm going to send this over to our ID and PM teams to hopefully get you some answers.

Thanks!

DH

Thanks, Danielle.