Windows Update takes a long time when updating thorugh batchpatch

[Gonzo81]

Hi Guys,

i have a problem thats annoying me.

We have 1 wsus server 1 management server for engineers running batchpatch.

When we start updating using batchpatch the update procedure takes about 2 times longer compared with updating directly from server…..

No virusscanning is active. Anyone any thoughts on this one?

[doug]

Gonzo – There is no reason that I can think of why this would be happening. We have not experienced this behavior before nor has anyone ever reported it. Furthermore, BatchPatch utilizes the Windows Update Agent to download and install the updates, so the process that it runs is virtually identical to the process that is run when performing manual Windows Update directly on the target computer, so there isn’t really anything in the process that should/would cause it to be slower than manual update.

I’d like to confirm first that you are not using BatchPatch in ‘cached’ mode or ‘offline’ mode. Both of these modes are definitely slower than the default mode. In a WSUS environment, neither of these modes is recommended.

Is the WSUS server the same server that is being used by the engineers to run BatchPatch?

How many target computers are being updated simultaneously?

How many engineers are performing these updates, and are the engineers working on the same management server at the same time?

Do you pre-stage the download portion of the updates to the target computer (either with GPO or with BatchPatch) or do you typically initiate the download+installation all at the same time with BatchPatch?

How did you determine that it’s slower using BP than direct update? What I mean to say is did you do a controlled test? Or are you just estimating? If you are estimating, there are a lot of variables I can think that could make it difficult to really know the truth about the performance comparison if you didn’t do a controlled test.

For example, did you install the exact same updates on the control as you did on the test target? Some updates take much longer to install than others.

Did you download + install on both or did you download + install on one and just install without download on the other? Of course if one included a download but the other was just an install, then the one that performed the download would take longer.

Did one install the MSRT and one not install the MSRT? The MSRT installation takes a long time because it does a real-time scan for malicious software right when it is installed, and the update process is not complete until that scan completes.

When you were doing manual update, presumably you couldn’t do all servers at the exact same time. When you use BatchPatch, are you doing all servers at the same time? If they are all downloading from the WSUS server at the same exact time, this could certainly create a bottleneck that wouldn’t exist when manually updating one server at a time. This is why it’s recommended to pre-stage the download portion of the updates (ideally just using GPO), so that when it comes time to perform the installation you are able to use “Install downloaded updates” which does not involve a query to the WSUS server, and therefore wouldn’t create a bottleneck.

-Doug

[Gonzo81]

Hi Dough.

What i did is the following;

1. Did a clean installation windows 2012R2 in VMware.

2. Took a snapshot.

3. Only 1 engineer (myself) is testing this before we going to take batchpatch in production

4. On the 2012 VM i ran windows updates using Wsus, 105 updates are found

5. monitor duration updates this is 1 hour.

6. Delete snapshot, start updating with batchpatch on another machine (my own physical workstation) also tried using batchpatch on the wsus server an on a 2012r2 management machine.

7. chosen download en install now, but only on 1 server.

8. 105 updates, MSRT included on both updates.(but i will remove this, good tip)

9. monitor duration 2,5 hours

Very strange huh..

[doug]

Hi Gonzo –

This certainly does seem odd, but there are still some outstanding questions you didn’t answer…

For example I don’t know whether your manual update process had already downloaded the updates before you installed them or if it performed a download plus install like you did with BP.

I don’t know whether you updated from WSUS both times or if you updated from WSUS when you did the manual update, but you updated from Windows Update or Microsoft Update when you did the BP test.

If you’re interested in performing the test a second time, I would like to have you save a copy of C:WindowsWindowsUpdate.log on the target computer before and after the update process for both tests (so a total of 4 WindowsUpdate.log files), and then email me the log files for review to see if I’m able to determine what might be the cause of the speed difference.

Thanks,

Doug

[Gonzo81]

Hi Dough,

all delta’s are the same (of course 😉 )

i will test a second time and will send you the log files, thank you very much for your effort!

[doug]

Sounds good. Thanks.

[Gonzo81]

Hi Doug,

i’ve just sent you the mail with logfiles.

kind regards.

[doug]

Thanks. I responded to your email.

[Author]

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