Using WSUS on home PCs - questions

[Bob F]

I'm looking at how this update program/system works in the environment of home
computers. Looking at the files on my PC it has produced, it looks like it
stores the data files in "client" and "iso" subdirectories under the wsusoffline
folder. I ran the program version 8.3 last year, and it contains ~4.5GB of data
in those 2 directories. I just downloaded V8.6 and had it get the latest XP
updates, and ended up with ~1GB of data.

Doing some googleing, it becomes apparent that this program is really intended
to big network servers doing automatic updates to many PCs. I'm trying to
understand how things are stored, and how WSUS updates affect this process.

The V8.6 data and the V8.3 data are in differennt directories. Since the 8.6
data is significantly smaller, I'm wondering if it found the other directory and
just added what it needed. What I'd like to do is create a hard drive just for
these updates for use on any of my PCs I need to work on with XP in the future.

If I just delete the WSUS directories I have now and copy the WSUS software to a
harddrive and run it from there, will that work. Is it the right way to do it?

 

[Tim Rude]

I'm looking at how this update program/system works in the environment of home
computers. Looking at the files on my PC it has produced, it looks like it
stores the data files in "client" and "iso" subdirectories under the wsusoffline
folder. I ran the program version 8.3 last year, and it contains ~4.5GB of data
in those 2 directories. I just downloaded V8.6 and had it get the latest XP
updates, and ended up with ~1GB of data.

Doing some googleing, it becomes apparent that this program is really intended
to big network servers doing automatic updates to many PCs. I'm trying to
understand how things are stored, and how WSUS updates affect this process.

The V8.6 data and the V8.3 data are in differennt directories. Since the 8.6
data is significantly smaller, I'm wondering if it found the other directory and
just added what it needed. What I'd like to do is create a hard drive just for
these updates for use on any of my PCs I need to work on with XP in the future.

If I just delete the WSUS directories I have now and copy the WSUS software to a
harddrive and run it from there, will that work. Is it the right way to do it?

I assume you're talking about the utility available from here:

http://www.wsusoffline.net/

At the computer shop I work at, we use this regularly to update
computers after re-installing the OS, or when a customer brings in a
machine that's missing a service pack or a lot of updates.

We have the app and data installed to one of the shop computers, and
then each time we update it (usually once a month after Patch Tuesday)
we copy the entire wsusoffline directory structure to the USB flash
drives that we use to install the updates on the computers that need it.
We use flash drives with a hardware locking switch so there's no way for
the flash drive to get infected or modified by whatever system we stick
it into.

Then when it's time to install updates on a customer's computer, we
stick in the locked flash drive, browse to the wsusoffline\client
directory and run the UpdateInstaller.exe utility.

Whenever there's a new version of wsusoffline released, we let it
install directly overtop of the existing one. Then it cleans up anything
that isn't needed anymore and adds new updates as needed.

I'd recommend that you install the latest version (8.6) over top of your
prior (8.3) version in the same directory. Then run the
UpdateGenerator.exe in the top wsusoffline directory. Select the options
you want and let it work. Be sure you check the 'Clean up download
directories' box so that it can weed out any obsolete items that aren't
needed.

We don't bother checking either of the 'Create ISO images' boxes, since
we don't burn the updates to disks. Nor do we check the 'USB medium'
box, since we always just copy the whole directory structure to the USB
drive.