WSUS / wuauclt.exe command line options

There is alot of static on the internet about the wuauclt.exe tool and the commands that actually work for it.

Lots of discussions will give you a listing of options that will then be told off by someone as “not functional”.

I’ve seen parts of the code in WUAUCLT.exe and found a list with commands that seem to atleast triggers responses.

/DetectNow – We all know this
/ReportNow – Forces a Report to the WSUS server
/RunHandlerComServer – Untested
/RunStoreAsComServer – Untested
/ShowSettingsDialog – Spawns pop-up to select auto-updates
/ResetAuthorization – Useful if the client has been reassigned to a new target group and is not properly picking up that target group assignment (most likely because it’s using a cached targeting cookie).
/ResetEulas – Untested
/ShowWU – Shows the WU window
/ShowWindowsUpdate – Same as /ShowWU
/SelfUpdateManaged – Triggers a forced scan for updates via the WSUS settings
/SelfUpdateUnmanaged – Triggers a forced scan via Windows Update site
/UpdateNow – Triggers a forced update event
/ShowWUAutoScan – Same as /ShowWU (as far as I can tell atm)
/ShowFeaturedUpdates – Brings up the “Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Windows Update\Select featured updates to install” window
/ShowOptions – Brings up the “Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Windows Update\Change settings” window
/ShowFeaturedOptInDialog – Brings up a window stating “Microsoft Update can periodically show you detailed notifications when new Microsoft software is available to install manually”. Unsure to it’s function, Yes is recommended and probably default.
/DemoUI – Seems to turn off Automatic Updates

All this information is provided “as is” from tests run on my Windows 7 Pro x64 edition (Build 7600). I skipped some of these tests due to the environment I am in at the moment.

One comment:

  1. Great, exactly what I was looking for: having all the information but no blah blah!

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