Servicing related questions I have seen this week

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I know I havent written anything in a little bit, sorry about that.  I wanted to do a quick run down of some of the servicing related questions I have seen from customers over the last week or so with their answers in the hopes that it might help one of you in the future.

  1. Can I change the port that Windows Update uses from port 80?
    • Answer: No.  However, if you can set the DisableWindowsUpdateAccess policy to block access to WU/MU when using an internal WSUS server.  This will cause any calls to WU/MU to immediately fail out and utilize the internal server.
  2. If Windows Updates are released on Tuesdays, why wouldnt I have some of them install until later in the week?
    1. Answer: This is a simplified explanation but when you pull down updates from Windows Update, each update that is applicable is given a sequence number.  We will not download an applicable update until the acceptrate for the download exceeds the sequence number your system rolls.  For ease of explanation, lets assume the range is 0-100.  Because we might want to control how many downloads hit the server, we publish a value on the Windows Update servers that tells the client whether or not it can pull the update down.  So, let's say you checked Windows Update and you needed two updates (Update#1 and Update#2).  For Update#1 your machine "rolls" a 99.  For Update#2 your machine "rolls" a 20.  On the Windows Server, Update#1 might have a value of 25 and Update#2 might have a value of 100.  For your machine, you would pull down only update number two because it's download number was lower than the throttle number from the server.  Over the course of the week, the throttle for Update#1 will be increased and once its over 99, your machine would pull down the update and install it.
    2. For those of you curious what this looks like in a Windows Update.log, here's a snippet: DnldMgr Regulation: {7971F918-A847-4430-9279-4A52D1EFE18D} - Update C8489AA7-3619-4486-BEA2-AAF67DFBA9B9 is "Priority" regulated and can NOT download. Sequence 9576 vs AcceptRate 2889.  In this case, the customer would not get the update until the sequence number exceeded the acceptrate
  3. Where can I find a listing of the Windows Update.log exit/error codes?
    1. Answer: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc720442(WS.10).aspx
  4. I'm attempting to install multiple updates via PKGMGR during an unattended installation and it's only installing the first update.  Why?
    1. Answer: https://support.microsoft.com/kb/932224/en-us
  5. Server Manager command and DISM commands for installing roles and features dont use the same syntax.  Why?
    1. Answer: Server Manager's concept of a role is different from that of DISM.  Server Manager see's a role as a possible collection of features where DISM see's only the features.  Server Manager can handle the dependencies of features that have parenting structures (like IIS).  Within DISM, those features would need to be specifically turned on/off by feature name (note: feature name can be found with the command DISM /online /get-features).  Typically, you will want to use Server Manager or servermanagercmd to install roles/features within Windows.

Those are the one's I've seen this week that I thought were particularly interesting.  Hope that helps answer a question or two you might have had in the past.

UPDATE:  I wanted to provide more clarification around item to above after a discussion with the product group.  The reason for update regulation is to relase content in a measured, deliberate way.  We want to ensure that we are not pushing more content out than ISPs and CDNs can handle, so we balance bandwidth considerations against the need to provide the update(s) as rapidly as possible.  For security updates, this regulation happens very quickly (we move from 0-100% faster).  The same thing holds true for large updates such as IE and Service Packs with the exception that they tend to throttle out more slowly until they are broadly available to all customers.  Regulated updates also behave differently based on the way a user selects to install the update.

  • Using Automatic Updates, you wont be offered an update for which your throttle number isnt high enough to get the update.  In other words, you're going to get that particular update.
  • In Windows Update and Microsoft Update, you're interactively asking for a list of updates.  Regulated updates will be shown but unchecked by default.  Chooing an update will start the "roll".  Users who use Automatic Updates and have notifications enabled will also fall into this category if they use the notification to install the update.
  • Managed clients such as SCCM, WSUS, etc, have no regulation values for the updates because these are controlled by the admins of the environment.

--Joseph