[doug]

Jason – They should *not* remain open. In fact, if PsExec.exe is remaining open, then that means it is not finishing its work, and I would expect that you would not see progress in the BatchPatch grid either. The fact that you’re saying the connections are also remaining open on the target server as well is another indication that the process simply is not completing. The normal behavior is for you to start the action in BP, then psexec is launched for the duration of the action, and then psexec terminates and BP reports the status. If psexec doesn’t terminate, then BP will not update the grid with any changes, so essentially what I’m saying is that if psexec isn’t terminating then BP basically isn’t going to be able to complete most actions, including all Windows Update actions.

When you say that the connections remain open, consuming server resources and slowing/stopping BP, I think you might have it backwards. Obviously I haven’t looked at your server, so I can’t say for sure, but it seems like BP is “stopping” simply due to the fact that the psexec instances aren’t returning (or they aren’t returning quickly enough – not sure how long you waited or how quickly you expect them to return, but it depends on the action), but it’s not “stopping” because of a resource problem. It’s simply waiting for the psexec connections to close so that it can continue doing what it’s doing. If you’re installing 200 windows updates, it could take a couple hours, depending on the setup). 50 rows in a grid all running at the same time shouldn’t require a ton of resources. Maybe something like 100 megabytes of RAM for all the psexec instances. If the psexec connections never close, then BP simply waits, indefinitely for them to close. BP relies on the psexec processes to end because that’s how psexec works. If psexec is never ending, then it means it’s not working.

My question to you is has BP ever worked on your system? Is this a new problem? There is no configurable timeout for the psexec connections in BP. BP waits for them to close, otherwise BP can’t do what it needs to do. If none of them are returning then it does sound like there’s a problem, and BP basically isn’t working at all. I have never experienced nor heard of this happening before, so something might be jacked up with your system. As a start I would suggest you reboot the machine that’s running BatchPatch. After that you should make sure you have the latest version of psexec and then test running psexec at the command line to make sure that it is behaving properly. So for example you could run “psexec \targetcomputer IPCONFIG” in a cmd prompt. The normal behavior is for psexec.exe to open for just a handful of seconds. The target computer would see a psexesvc.exe in its processes list for that same handful of seconds. After the IPCONFIG command returns output to the cmd prompt, both psexec.exe and the target machine’s psexesvc.exe disappear. If psexec isn’t behaving properly when run from a cmd prompt, then BP certainly isn’t going to work.

I can’t really think of any reason why such a problem would occur. The only thought that comes to mind is what is the network connection like between the BP machine and the target machines? If there is very little bandwidth and a lot of latency, then perhaps that’s where your issue is. In that case you simply might not be able to execute 50 at a time. You might have to do just a few at a time. Not sure. It would require some experimentation. I’ve never run BP on such a severely limited network.

You probably already know this, but just in case you weren’t aware– you can kill all the psexec connections with a single command “taskkill /IM psexec.exe”

I hope this helps.

-Doug

[doug]

Yes, the setting will limit the number of rows that can copy files simultaneously from the BatchPatch computer to the target computer. This applies to cached mode as well as for software deployments.

The reason you don’t experience the issue with the KB copies is because we use a different underlying method for the WsusScn2.cab file copy. We are able to reproduce the problem that you encountered. As soon as there is more than one WsusScn2.cab copy happening, the CPU hits 100% and the copy rate decreases drastically by 100x!

We have isolated the cause of the problem, and we expect to have it fixed in the next release of the software. In the meantime, I think your best bet is to set the concurrent copies to 1. Even though it will only do one copy at a time, the overall copy rate should still be much faster. Also, once you’ve done one check for updates using the latest WsusScn2.cab file, BatchPatch will not re-copy that file to targets until Microsoft releases a new WsusScn2.cab file. So, after the first run, you could switch the concurrent file copies value back to 6, if you want, so that the KB files can be copied simultaneously to more than 1 host.

-Doug

[doug]

To close the loop on this, I did a bit more testing/research.

First, there was a missing ‘where’ clause in your command. So, the proper command would be:

WMIC product WHERE name="Notepad++" call uninstall /nointeractive

If we execute the new command *with* the WHERE clause, we then get the following output:

No Instance(s) Available.

Essentially that means that nothing where name=”Notepad++” was found. So, I ran another query:

wmic product get name

The list turned up *without* Notepad++, which explains the previous “No Instance(s) Available” message. It seems that the Notepad++ installer does not register itself with the system in such a way that we can use WMIC to uninstall it.

[doug]

Hi John –

Generally when you execute a script remotely on a target computer using BatchPatch, that script will only have access to resources on the target computer. The script will *not* have access network resources. This is why your script isn’t completing.

You *might* have luck if you explicitly supply credentials for the row in BatchPatch using ‘Actions > Specify alternate credentials’ Let me know if that works. It might, but it might not.

Assuming the above suggestion does not work, then the way to do this is successfully is to *not* rely on any network resources for the installations. You would need to write your script so that it does not include network locations and instead just includes the relative paths/locations. Then put all files in a single directory and use the BatchPatch ‘Deployment’ feature with the ‘Copy entire directory’ option.

There’s an example of this type of usage at the following link. Hopefully you can use this as a template/example to model your script/deployment:

Deploy Multiple MSU files in a single action

I hope this helps.

One other option that you might consider is to create a separate deployment in BatchPatch for each application that you want to install. Save each deployment in the BatchPatch deployment window. Once each deployment configuration has been saved you can then create a ‘Job Queue’ that installs each deployment that you previously created, sequentially. You can then also save that job queue for future use. This would give you a one-click way to install all the apps in a single action.

-Doug

[doug]

Thank you for making us aware of this issue. We are looking into it. I will report back here when I have more information.

For the time being it seems that limiting the concurrent file copies to just 1 will prevent this from happening. See ‘Tools > Settings > General > Concurrent File-Copy Operations Maximum.’ Setting this value to 1 should both prevent the CPU from pegging at 100% and also dramatically speed up the copy. The overall benefit should be positive, even though less concurrent copies are taking place.

Thanks,

Doug

[doug]

Mats – I tried to uninstall Notepad++ at the command line, using the syntax you provided, WITHOUT using BP. So, I launched a command prompt as administrator, and then I ran the following command:

WMIC product name="Notepad++" call uninstall /nointeractive

It did *not* uninstall Notepad++ and instead gave the following output:

ERROR:

Description = Invalid query

That said, since I cannot uninstall Notepad++ *without* BP using the command you provided, I certainly do not expect to be able to uninstall Notepad++ *with* BP using that same invalid command. Before you ever try to use BP to perform a remote action, you should confirm that the syntax you want to use works when you’re at the command line *not* using BP.

---

---

To successfully uninstall Notepad++, use BatchPatch Remote Command 1/2 (Remote Command 3/4 will not work with this syntax), and enter the following line:

"C:Program FilesNotepad++uninstall.exe" /S

[doug]

Booster – If you run BatchPatch as admin, then yes you will be able to self-update. If it is *not* launched as admin, the self-update will fail. However, in either case, the reboot will always fail. BatchPatch will never reboot the machine that it is running on.

-Doug

[doug]

I corrected the title. 🙂

[doug]

Thanks for the suggestion. We’ll consider this for a future build.

-Doug

[doug]

Olivier – Thank you for the detailed explanation. Everything you said makes sense. The idea to show the job steps is very good, and we will plan to add it in a future build.

With regard to the VM reboot issue, I now understand what you are describing, but at the moment I’m not sure what we can do about this. For the time being, your solution of adding a 10 minute wait period is good. Your suggestion to maybe add a check for pending install/reboot makes sense, and we’ll look into it, but the problem is that there isn’t really a formal way to ask Windows if it is in the middle of doing a post reboot patch and if it’s about to reboot itself. In any case, we will look into this issue more to see if we can figure out a good way to address it. However, for now you should stick with your 10 minute wait step.

Thanks again,

Doug

[doug]

booster –

The actions are all printed in the ‘All Messages’ column as they are executed, so that you can tell what is happening. Is this not sufficient? What more is it that you are looking to see? Please be as detailed as possible in your description. The only way that we can update/improve the app based on your feedback is if you are very clear about what you would like to see that is not currently available/visible in the app.

When you say that you had problems with ‘Wait for host to go offline and come back online’ I’m not sure I understand. You’re saying that if the host reboots as part of the patch process itself, then BP tries the next job step while the host is offline. Under what circumstances does the host reboot without BP being responsible for initiating the reboot? I am not aware of such a thing to exist with Windows Update. When using BP, the row in BatchPatch should either say “Reboot Required” or “No reboot required,” but it sounds like you’re saying that you’re facing a situation where it is reporting “No reboot required” but it’s rebooting on its own without BP initiating the reboot? I have never experienced this behavior. Am I understanding correctly?

Thanks,

Doug

[doug]

Yes – At the very least we will def re-word it to be more clear so that it’s not just ‘create’ but also ‘edit’ or ‘modify.’

Thanks again,

Doug

[doug]

Thanks for the suggestion. You can currently modify remote and local commands directly from the Job Queue window, but to edit a deployment you have to go to the deployment window separately. We will add your suggestion to the list.

-Doug

[doug]

Hi martbasi –

We will consider adding functionality to a future build that enables exporting/importing job queue information. In the meantime, this info is saved in the following location:

HKCUSoftwareBatchPatchSavedUserDefinedJobQueues

-Doug

[doug]

Remote Command 3 will work, yes.

-Doug

[doug]

Hugo – I’m not sure that this is really a question about BatchPatch so much as it’s a question about environment variables. I’m not an expert on environment variables.

BatchPatch can execute remote commands, as you know. So it’s just a question of finding the correct command to execute.

I did a quick google search on environment variables, and from what I found the “SET” command only sets current session variables. If you want to set a system variable you have to use “SETX” instead. It also says that updates made with SETX will only be visible to the next logon session, which essentially means that if you use BatchPatch to add/update a variable on ComputerX, then on ComputerX you will not see this change until/unless you logoff and log back on to ComputerX to verify it.

That said, in BatchPatch I simply highlighted my target host(s) and created a remote command with the following syntax:

SETX client myfqdn

I then executed the command in BatchPatch and it reported “Exit Code: 0 (SUCCESS).” So, I logged on to the remote system to verify it was there. On the remote system I opened a cmd prompt and typed “SET” and I could see the value that I set previously was visible.

-Doug

[doug]

That is a fantastic workaround that I wasn’t aware of! Thanks for mentioning it.

-Doug

[doug]

Hi Timma – Thank you for pointing this out. It’s not really a bug, but we will see if we can figure out a better way to handle it. The situation is that in the previous version the column was set to not wrap text. In the new version it is set to wrap text. The output of the command that you are using is in the format:

Model

<actual model name>

So, the way that it’s displaying now in the new version is technically correct. The old version was removing the wrap, which in the case of this particular command happens to be convenient because it allows you to see everything. For other outputs, however, it makes the formatting worse.

I think moving forward the best solution will be for us to provide a setting for the user to be able to enable/disable wrapping.

In the meantime, it looks like we left wrap=false for the ‘Remote Command Output Log’ column, so you can use that to get what you’re looking for until we release an update.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

Doug

[doug]

No problem. Glad it’s working now.

Take care,

Doug

[doug]

The current build of BatchPatch doesn’t allow you to exclude any services from this check, but I will add it to the to-do list for a future build.

Thanks,

Doug

[doug]

Hugo – There are a couple of possibilities here:

1. Make sure that BatchPatch is instructing computers to search the same WSUS server that is generating your reports. If BatchPatch is configured to have computers search for updates on Windows Update or Microsoft Update instead of your own WSUS server, then you might end up with different updates installed than what is approved on your WSUS.

2. Sometimes after installing updates and rebooting, a new update will become available for a computer. This has nothing to do with BatchPatch per se. It’s something that can occur when you use the regular Windows Update interface or BatchPatch or any update installation mechanism. For this reason, some users always build into their update process a second check for updates after reboot. In fact, BatchPatch even has a “Update + Reboot Cycle” option on the ‘Windows Update’ section so that you can have it cycle through as many times as you want. You could also use the ‘Job Queue’ for this.

I hope this helps.

-Doug

[doug]

In order to populate the description field you need to first check the box that says “Import description field” before you click “Add to grid” when importing hosts from AD. This box is visible under the “Add-to-grid options” of the ‘Add hosts from directory’ window.

-Doug

[doug]

Excellent. I’m glad that worked. Keep your eye out for the new release in the coming days. It’s great to hear that the app is working well for you! Thank you for the kind words.

Take care,

Doug

[doug]

Wiseguy – The current version of BatchPatch allows you to execute a job queue in the following way:

1. Create a job queue for a given row or rows and then select the “apply queue to row(s) without executing” button. This will apply the specified job queue settings to a particular set of rows that you have selected.

2. Then go ahead and schedule a task for those same rows using “Execute job queue” as the task option.

In the next version of BatchPatch (should be released within a few weeks or so), you will be able to use the task scheduler to not only execute the job queue that is applied to the row(s), but you will also be able to execute previously saved job queues. (the current version does not support executing previously saved queues)

Thanks,

Doug

[doug]

Scott – Thanks for testing.

I understand that you can make manual PsExec connections. PsExec is not the source of the problem here. The issue is actually WMI on those target computers. The reason I had you run WMIC PATH Win32_ComputerSystem GET name is because I wanted to see what would happen when running a direct WMI query on those machines. When BatchPatch runs “Get host name” is uses WMI but it does it remotely (not using PsExec). The WMIC command, however, gets run locally on the target through the use of PsExec. The fact that it returns -2147467262 (the same error as the original “Get host name” action in BatchPatch) indicates that WMI is the source of the problem. -2147467262 translates to “No such interface” and explains why we then see “Specified cast is not valid” because the WMI query is returning empty, and then BatchPatch fails to cast the retrieved object to the host name string because the object is empty. If you were curious you could take that same WMIC command from above and run it in a command prompt manually on one of the problematic machines. You’ll see that it returns an error, indicating the WMI is the source of the problem.

All that said, this is not a BatchPatch issue. It’s an issue with WMI. Normally I would recommend simply restarting the WMI service on the target computers. However, since you said a reboot didn’t fix the issue, then a service start certainly isn’t going to do it. I wonder if perhaps a Windows Update you installed (or some other type of update) caused WMI corruption on those targets. Your next step should be to look into repairing WMI. Take a look at the following links as a starting point:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/8ed26d46-9994-4052-a307-5b071805aea8/wmi-corrupt-how-to-reinstallrepair

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff404265.aspx

[doug]

Hi Scott –

What version of BatchPatch are you using?

What OS are the target computers?

Do other “Get information” queries work in BatchPatch without the error?

What happens if you run the following command under “Remote Command (logged output)”

WMIC PATH Win32_ComputerSystem GET name

Thanks,

Doug

[doug]

OK great. We will also consider the possibility of extending the regular ping monitoring to include a more thorough online check option.

-Doug

[doug]

In the latest version of BatchPatch released 2014-12-09 the ‘Job Queue’ has an item called “Wait for host to go offline and come back online,” which uses a WMI check to see if the server is responding to connection attempts. Does this work for you?

When you say that BatchPatch deems it to be back up and running by responding to ping, in what area of the software are you referring to? I’m not saying that you are incorrect, but if you could be more specific of exactly what you are trying to accomplish, it would help me understand if/where a change needs to be made. Are you just referring to when BatchPatch prints “server ONLINE” in the ‘All messages’ column? Or is there something else that you’re referring to?

Thanks,

Doug

[doug]

Hello Mattias – In order to prevent the computer from seeing the update as available for installation you must decline the update in WSUS. If you are saying that you already declined it in WSUS but it’s still appearing as available on the target computer then I would question if the search for updates is actually taking place against the WSUS server. In BatchPatch under ‘Tools > Settings > Windows Update’ make sure that the ‘Server Selection’ is set to ‘Default / Managed’ and not ‘Windows Update’ or ‘Microsoft Update.’ Also, verify the configuration of the target machine to confirm it’s pointing at your WSUS server. You can use the ‘Actions > Windows Update > Get Windows Update config’ option in BatchPatch to confirm. If you’re still seeing the update on the computer then I’m not sure why, but it’s not related to BatchPatch. BatchPatch simply reports the updates that the computer shows as available. If BatchPatch is showing that update, then if you launch the Windows Update interface directly on the machine it will also show the update if it’s searching the same update server.

In any case, another option is to “hide” the update either using the Windows Update interface or using BatchPatch. If you choose to hide it with BatchPatch it will still be available to the computer but will no longer appear anywhere until/unless you later unhide it. The hide/unhide option is equivalent to launching the Windows Update interface on the target computer and right clicking on the update and choosing “hide update.”

-Doug

[doug]

Newman – Currently if you select a recurring monthly schedule, it will select a date that is exactly one month in the future, with no regard to whether it’s a weekday or weekend. We are hoping/planning to add more advanced scheduler functionality in a future build, but for the moment what you see is what you get. Sorry about that.

-Doug

[Author]

Posts