System Center 2012 Products doesn't Appear on WSUS

While checking the WSUS Products and Classifications i noticed that some products as the System Center Service Manager is not listed, also i noticed that the System Center 2012 R2 Products are not listed at all even with the latest updates (I am running WSUS on Windows server 2012 R2).

Upon checking the Microsoft Update Catalog on the Internet, i noticed that Service Manager is not listed/published on the Catalog as well, this explains why SCSM updates are not listed in the WSUS. For the current state WSUS is not designed to give SCSM under Products and Classifications as its not yet under the Catalog.

As for the System Center 2012 R2, they were just released less than 2 month ago and the next expected Rollup Will be mostly in the first quarter of 2014. I double checked with Microsoft Support team and they replied back that the Product team is working on WSUS hotfix/Service Pack/Release..........etc that might list the 2012 R2 Products.

Recommended links for WSUS

1. Microsoft Update Catalog: http://catalog.update.microsoft.com
2. Deploy WSUS 2012 and 2012R2 in your organization: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh852340.aspx

   

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How to Manually Delete Old/Empty WSUS computer Group from Database

Recently i was trying to delete/Remove one of the old computer groups under WSUS Console - Computers - All Computers. This Group was an old group with no members/Clients or any pending approvals any more. I tried removing it from the GUI by Right licking the object and Delete but the server hanged and i got connection error as shown below.

This problem might occur in WSUS servers utilizing the internal DB which has several limits and with the huge number of updates and many groups you can face such issue.

To solve this problem and manually remove this Group you will need to work it from the database and edit couple of tables as follows:

1. Make Sure to take a backup from your WSUS server and WSUS DB.
2. Use SQL Management Studio to connect to Windows internal database \\.\pipe\MSSQL$Microsoft##SSEE\sql\query
3. We will mainly remove the old records from tbtargetgroupand tbflattenedtargetgroup tables
4. Run “select * from tbtargetgroup” to get the list of groups.
5. Identify the TargetGroupID of one of the groups that you want to delete
6. Run delete from tbflattenedtargetgroup where TargetGroupID = ‘<TargetGroupID for the group which is to be removed>’
7. Run delete from tbdeployment where targetgroupid = ‘<Previous step ID>’
8. Run delete from tbtargetgroup where TargetGroupID = ‘<Previous same ID>’

This should take care of the deletion of these groups. Again its always required to ensure you have full backup from your DB.

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How to Clean Microsoft WSUS Content Folder from Old and unneeded Products

Microsoft WSUS administrators sometimes tend to select all given Products (Options - Products and Classifications) and by time the WSUS content folder grows dramatically till it fill all disk space. If the WSUS administrator tries to uncheck or deselect unneeded products later on, this won't save or minimize the current space.

So how do the WSUS updates gets downloaded/Propagated on the WSUS server ?

1. WSUS server contacts the Microsoft Update servers and will only downloads the metadata (Not complete Full Update Package)
2. The Binaries or the actual downloads are only downloaded when you approve them manually or if there is an Auto approval rule configured.

In order to clean the WSUS content folder from old/unneeded  or unused products you have to do the following:

1. Under Options - Update Files and Languages, Remove the check box for download Express Installation files (This is optional recommendation depending on your environment).
2. In the Options - Products and Classifications, select only the needed products.
3. On WSUS console- decline all approved updated which were either installed or not applicable.
4. Delete the WsusContent Folder.
5. Navigate to the C:/program files/updates services/tools on the WSUS server
6. Run WSUSutil.exe Reset

On the next download cycle it will download only the updates which have been listed in products and classifications and which have not been declined.

Also Its recommended to install all Latest WSUS updates and hotfixes.

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