Category Archives: Tutorials

Single-Click Update Plus Reboot of All Virtual Machine Guests and the VM Host They Reside On

By Scott | Published: July 22, 2019

It seems that everyone always wants to automate everything these days. Sometimes it almost feels like sysadmins think that their credibility hinges on their ability to automate something. However, in reality I think there are times when more automation makes sense, but there are also times where automating something isn’t the best idea or isn’t […]

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Using BatchPatch to Deploy Software to Multiple Remote Computers

By Scott | Published: July 2, 2019

In addition to being a great tool for initiating Windows update processes on remote computers, BatchPatch can also simplify the task of deploying / installing third-party software on numerous target computers. The process is generally very simple with three basic steps: Identify the silent / quiet parameter for the installer package that you plan to […]

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Remotely Installing Windows Feature Update Version 1903 (the ‘May 2019 Update’)

By Scott | Published: June 25, 2019

To install Windows 10 feature update 1903 (as well as the other Windows 10 feature updates) remotely using BatchPatch, you should follow the process outlined below. The standard, built-in Windows update actions in BatchPatch will not work to install these feature updates. Also note FYI even though these are “feature updates” they are actually technically […]

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An Alternate Way to Deploy a Registry Value to Remote Computers

By Scott | Published: June 17, 2019

In the past I demonstrated how to use BatchPatch to deploy registry changes to multiple remote computers. For your reference those tutorials are available at the following links: Remote Registry Updates with BatchPatch Deploy Registry Keys to Multiple Computers Using BatchPatch Deploying a Registry Key / Value to HKEY_CURRENT_USER (HKCU) or All Users in HKEY_USERS […]

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Orchestrating Complex Update And Reboot Sequences Involving Multiple Target Computers

By Scott | Published: June 4, 2019

BatchPatch has a unique capability that we call the ‘Advanced multi-row queue sequence‘. Admittedly the name of this functionality isn’t its best feature, but we chose to name it for exactly what it is and what it does rather than a fancier name that would be less descriptive. 🙂 The advanced multi-row queue sequence is […]

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Using BatchPatch Standalone Without WSUS

By Scott | Published: May 28, 2019

If you are using BatchPatch in a standalone configuration without a WSUS server, there are a few things to be aware of. The first order of business is to configure your environment to work with BatchPatch. Please review the Getting Started page. Make sure that you can successfully run the BatchPatch action ‘Windows updates > […]

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BatchPatch Stuck ‘Attempting to initiate Windows Update’ or ‘Initiating execution…’

By Scott | Published: May 21, 2019

This posting is for you if you can’t seem to get any Windows Update, Remote Process, or Deployment actions to work in BatchPatch, and instead they all seem to just hang, indefinitely, on ‘Windows Update: Attempting to initiate Windows Update‘ or ‘Deployment: Initiating execution…‘, depending on the particular action that is being executed. To confirm […]

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Custom Update And Reboot Sequences for Multiple Computers

By Scott | Published: May 9, 2019

Today I’d like to demonstrate how to create a complete update-plus-reboot sequence where a group of computers must be shutdown and started up in a particular order. You might work in an environment where there is at least one group of servers that are not only reliant on each other for various reasons but where […]

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When WSUS and Group Policy (GPO) Are Not Enough

By Scott | Published: May 1, 2019

Does Everyone Need a 3rd-Party Patch Management Solution? A very common statement that you’ll find in discussions on the web about updating Windows computers in a network environment goes something like this: “There is no need to employ a 3rd-party Windows Update management solution because Microsoft provides WSUS and Group Policy objects (GPO) for free.” […]

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Patching Automation

By Scott | Published: April 24, 2019

When we originally designed BatchPatch the primary goal was to enable administrators to have much more control over the Windows update and reboot process on numerous systems. If the entire process is left to Group Policy it can be very difficult, if not impossible, to control the *exact* timing of everything and to have visibility […]

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