Best way to export windows update history?

[Mredd]

I would like to export the update history/log for future reference.

I checked out the Generate Consolidated report option from the windows update menu but it gives me only three options (tab, xml and pipe) and it doesnt give all of the log information as the BatchPatch.log does for the server.

Anyone know of a better way?

Thanks.

[doug]

The consolidated update history report is designed to simply report what updates have been installed/uninstalled on target hosts. If you want the actual BatchPatch activity for a given session, you can export the actual BatchPatch grid to a .html file. When you initiate a Windows Update action in BatchPatch, the log info that is written to the BatchPatch.log file is also written to the Remote Agent Log column in the BatchPatch grid. If you make sure that this column is visible and then select File > Export grid to HTML file, you’ll get the information you’re looking for.

I hope this helps.

-Doug

[Mredd]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Is there any other format that I can generate the grid data to other than HTML?

I would like to get the information to a database. Would that feature be available in a future version of the software?

Thanks.

[doug]

The only other currently available method for export of the grid would be to just highlight the entire grid and use ctrl-c to copy it. You could then paste it into Excel and do whatever you want with it from there.

Additionally, you could save the grid to a .bps file using File > Save. The .bps file is pure xml, which means that it can be loaded into a spreadsheet app like Excel, or a database.

We are considering more options for a future version, including database interaction of some kind. However, at the moment this is not available in the currently published build, and I’m not sure what the timeline is for it to become available or if it will definitely become available.

-Doug

[Author]

Posts