Windows Server Update Server (WSUS) and its predecessor Software Update Services (SUS) both allowed you to set a specific time to check for, and download updates to the local machine. Even on non-WSUS updated PC's, Automatic Updates can only be set to check for, and download updates at one specific time.

If you are testing a WSUS deployment, you may want to force the Automatic Updates client to poll your WSUS server to ensure it is working and updates are being detected and downloaded. This can be done easily and scripted to make it even easier! There are three registry keys that control this interval and by deleting them, Automatic Updates will run. To begin we need to stop the Automatic Updates service, this can be done from a command line by running:

NET STOP wuauserv

Next open up the registry with regedit and drill down too

HKEY_LocalMachine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update

Locate and delete the following values:

• LastWaitTimeout
• DetectionStartTime
• NextDetectionTime

Restart the Automatic Updates service and in a few minutes the client will poll the WSUS server for any missing patches and depending on your policy download and install and missing approved hotfixes. Of course this can all be scripted to make it even easier! Copy the following to a textfile and save as ForceUpdate.bat.

net stop wuauserv
REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v LastWaitTimeout /f
REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v DetectionStartTime /f
REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v NextDetectionTime /f net start wuauserv

Thats it, you can look in %SystemRoot%\WindowsUpdate.log and you should see the polling transactions.