Labtech | The First Things to Try When a Machine Will Not Patch
At Comprehensive, one of the most common things we hear and help troubleshoot are problems with machines not patching. While there are a variety of reasons that a machine might not patch including patch approval issues, and scripting issues, there are a few quick commands that you can execute which might help remediate patching problems that are occurring at a workstation level. Sometimes, the real problem is that the Windows Update settings on the actual machine have gotten changed, corrupted, or the Windows Update Agent itself has gotten corrupted some how. Here are a few commands you can try first that sometimes can clear these issues up.
Install the Windows Update Agent
This command will update the local Windows Update Agent on the machine in question with the latest version. Sometimes running this command can clear up patching problems.
Set Windows Update Defaults
This command sets the Windows Update Agent to run from the default settings effectively resetting the Windows Update Agent on the machine which can also at times clear up issues, however this command should also be followed by:
Set Windows Update for Labtech Only
This command sets Windows Update on the machine to only install updates from the Labtech Patch Manager which have been approved
Reattempt Failed Patches
This command will attempt to install any patches which have previously failed
While this obviously is not guaranteed to correct every patching issue or failure you have, it is certainly a great start to troubleshooting and can often correct one-off workstation patching failures. Often times, running a combination of these commands can be enormously helpful.
For more information on these and other default commands within Labtech check out this article in the University:
Happy Labteching!
