[doug]

Usually people just create a new row for a new host name. However, you can modify it if you want: ‘Grid > Enable/disable column editing‘

[doug]

We had another user with a similar situation where sending from BatchPatch in normal mode worked fine, but SMTP timeout would occur when sending email from the BatchPatch service instance. After review the Exchange logs we discovered the the Exchange “Tarpit” feature, which is an anti-spam feature, was the cause for the issues. While we don’t know why the Tarpit would be triggered only when emails were sent from the service instance as opposed to the normal BatchPatch instance (both use identical code for sending email), the problem was easily resolved by disabling the Tarpit feature on the Exchange BatchPatch receive connector.

[doug]

As mentioned in the previous posting, it’s the psexec service running with a custom name. There is nothing different about it now as compared to the previous version of BatchPatch because it’s not part of BatchPatch but rather is the psexec service component that is created by psexec. Approximately a year ago the version of BatchPatch that we released changed the default setting to use a custom name instead of the default psexesvc.exe, but if you have not updated your BatchPatch in the past year, then it’s possible that with this current BatchPatch it’s the first time you’ve had a custom name applied, and perhaps the custom name BatchPatchExeSvc-servername.exe as compared to the old name psexesvc.exe is what triggered the detection. I could only guess.

PsExec is sometimes detected by anti-malware apps because malware apps like to use psexec, and many anti-malware apps are not being particularly intelligent about what they are flagging. It would be kind of like flagging all red cars as being malicious just because some criminals like to drive red cars. But they’re just red cars and have nothing to do with the malice of the drivers.

[doug]

There is no list. That file is the psexec service set to run with a custom name assigned under ‘Tools > Settings > Remote Execution’. That file needs to be allowed to run/execute. It’s not likely that anything else would trigger your anti-malware software.

[doug]

Try ‘Help > Check for updates > View change log’

This ‘View change log’ link is in the same window that automatically popped up to notify you that there was an update available.

[doug]

No worries. I’m not sure how that opt-in status could have been changed on its own unless possibly the act of installing a feature update or some other update might have somehow reset it. We haven’t heard of any instances of something like that happening, but it’s the only thing I can think of that might make sense (unless someone else has access to the machine and opted-out manually at the Windows Update control panel.

[doug]

The full error text that appears in the ‘All Messages’ column contains the resolution:

Error -115: Failed to execute the search. Unknown update service. If attempting to use ‘Microsoft Update’ you must first opt-in to the service. See ‘Actions > Windows Updates > Opt-in…’

[doug]

No problem. Glad you got it working.

[doug]

The ‘Deployment’ column only shows the deployment configuration, not the status of execution. The ‘All Messages’ column turns blue on exit code 0, but if there was a different exit code then it would not be blue. If any subsequent action was executed after the exit code 0, then it would not be blue either because whatever it printed to the ‘All Messages’ column would be black (or orange in the case of an error).

[doug]

What do you see in the ‘All Messages’ column?

[doug]

Well… have you actually executed/initiated the deployment? The deployment field shows the configuration of the deployment that you pasted, but the ‘All Messages’ column is where the status/activity will be reported. You need to actually execute the deployment in order for it to begin, and it kinda sounds like maybe you just applied the deployment to the row but you didn’t actually initiate execution.

[doug]

Create a local command in BatchPatch (‘Actions > Execute local process/command > Create/modify local commands‘) with the following syntax:

cmd.exe /c start \\$computer\c$

or

cmd.exe /c start \\$computer\SomeOtherFolder

You will then see your local command under ‘Actions > Execute local process/command > Execute saved local command‘. You can also add a toolstrip button with ‘Tools > Customize visible toolstrip buttons‘. Just scroll to the bottom of the ‘Customize Toolstrip’ window and check the box next to the local command that you created.

[doug]

Use remote desktop to connect to the jump server, and then use BatchPatch inside the remote desktop window.

[doug]

If the connection drops enough to break the download, it is not resumable, unfortunately.

[doug]

BatchPatch first does a ping, if the ping is successful, it does a WMI query. If the WMI query is successful, BP considers the target host to be online.

The method for how you determine that a machine is online is probably less important than how you determine that the machine has first actually gone offline and then come back online. If you want to speed up your current process so that you are not always waiting the full 5 minutes in between reboots, if you’re dealing with physical hosts then I would suggest that you consider the job queue option for “Wait for host to go offline and come back online.” If you’re dealing with VMs that can reboot extremely quickly, then this item can be problematic. The issue is that if a reboot of a VM occurs within just several seconds, which isn’t uncommon, then the machine won’t be successfully detected by BP as having ever gone offline. For physical machines, which generally take many seconds (or even minutes) to perform their reboot process, we have not ever observed this to be an issue.

Another way to do this that you could consider is using a custom script that you write that checks the last bootup time property on the target computer before it executes a reboot, and then checks the last bootup time property again on the machine after that. The script can then compare them to determine if the machine has definitely been rebooted and is now back online. We might add something like this in a future version of BP, but at the moment you’d have to script it out yourself.

[doug]

That sounds right:

0x80244022 -2145107934 SUS_E_PT_HTTP_STATUS_SERVICE_UNAVAIL Http status 503 - temporarily overloaded

[doug]

My first question is what is the purpose of having step 2? What is the advantage to checking for a logged-on user and logging that user off before you reboot in the following step? And what is the purpose for even checking pending reboot if you’re going to reboot no matter what in step 3? Why not just skip those steps? In the queue you posted they appear to have no real utility that I can discern. What I mean is that a reboot will automatically log the user off anyway, so what advantage is there to logging the user off first and then doing the reboot? For what you have described it seems sufficient to simply do the reboot.

Additionally, consider that what you’re describing with first checking to see if anyone is logged on before executing a logoff procedure would also be unnecessary. That is, if you really want to perform a logoff operation separately from a reboot, you could simply execute a logoff command without ever checking to see if anyone is logged-on. Simply executing a logoff command would be sufficient. It wouldn’t matter whether or not someone was logged on or not.

You can use the following syntax inside of a BatchPatch remote command to perform a standard logoff:
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -command "(Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem).Win32Shutdown(0)"

or a forced logoff:
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -command "(Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem).Win32Shutdown(4)"

[doug]

The scheduler works across all tabs. I’m not quite sure what you’re describing. If you have an active support contract with us you should please contact us directly so that we can review your setup

[doug]

There is not currently a credentials locker. We’ll consider this.

However, when you enter a username/password that needs to be applied to a group of hosts, you can apply that logon account’s credentials to numerous hosts in the grid at the same time by just selecting multiple rows in the grid before you click “OK” in the BP Credentials form. You don’t have to individually select a credential for each row. You can just do many rows at the same time, so long as all of the selected rows at any given time use the same credential.

[doug]

You can search with ‘Grid > Find in grid’ or CTRL-F.

A filter option will be available in the next version, which we are hoping/expecting to publish in the next handful of days.

[doug]

Hmmm… There is no such limitation that we are aware of or that has ever been reported or that we have ever encountered ourselves. I’m not sure what to make of this observation. My initial reaction is that maybe in your troubleshooting something seemed to indicate that it was a BP limitation/issue when in reality it actually turned out to be due to something else such as a setting or password policy or something like that on your computers? I think the only way that we could conceivably figure this out with certainty is if you could provide us with the exact password that you were using… or if you are able to reproduce it with a different password and then provide us with that different password. I wouldn’t want you to do this unless it’s not in use anymore, and also I would have you send it to us via email, not in the forum here. Then we could test that exact password to see if we can reproduce the failure. Maybe somehow a certain character or sequence of characters could possibly create a weird/unexpected interaction in BP? I honestly don’t know how this could occur, but weird/obscure bugs can/do occur, so it would be hard to rule it out with certainty until we can test a password that is known to cause the problem for you. Let me know if you want to try this. Or feel free to email us through the contact form on our main website, and we can go from there. Thanks.

[doug]

I’m not sure what you’re asking. I need you to please clarify. For that matter, I’m also not sure what you’re describing about setting the local admin password too strong.

Anyway, if you specify alternate credentials in BP for a given row, you just input into the BP Credentials form the username and password that you defined for the particular user account on the target computer. There isn’t anything else special to do there.

[doug]

I did a full scan and confirmed the following:

The repository generated by the Dec 2021 WsusScn2.cab file is 451GB.

The repository generated by the Jan 2022 WsusScn2.cab file is 467GB. It contains an additional 16GB of update files that are not part of the Dec 2021 repository.

Everything looks normal/correct/expected to me.

[doug]

Hello – Can you clarify what you mean by “growth to x2 x2.5” ?

It seems like you’re trying to say that the size on disk of the repository has doubled? Is this correct. And what are you comparing this to? Are you saying that the January 2022 repository is double the size of December 2021 repository?

Also, you mentioned that Jan 2022 Microsoft has updated the offline scan file. Yes, Microsoft updates this file every single month. The fact that you mention this leads me to believe that maybe you have not been updating your scan file every month? And so are you comparing the repository size in Jan 2022 to some long time ago instead of to Dec 2021? It usually grows each month.

I did a quick scan, and it looks to me like the Jan 2022 repository is about 15GB larger than the Dec 2021 repository for the particular selections that you mentioned. Are you seeing something different?

You also mentioned a 2012R2 reboot loop issue. What does that have to do with the repository size?

[doug]

Hello – There is not currently a CLI/API. We will consider this for a future version. Thanks.

[doug]

First, check the Windows Update control panel on a target computer directly without using BatchPatch. Does the control panel show the same updates that you’re expecting to see based on what you are seeing in WSUS? The link below describes every possible reason why you might not be seeing updates in BatchPatch that you’re seeing in the Windows Update control panel of a given target computer.

BatchPatch and the Windows Update Control Panel Report a Different Number of Available Updates

[doug]

Thanks. We’ll consider this.

[doug]

Thanks. This is very helpful feedback.

[doug]

Can you tell me specifically which menus you’re talking about? When you right-click on a row, the first menu that appears is the Actions menu. Is that the one you’d want to compact? Or is it a submenu of the Actions menu that you’d want to compact, like maybe the ‘Actions > Windows Update’ menu?

Thanks.

[doug]

No. Are you running BP on a machine with a low resolution?

We realize the menus are not small. This is the tradeoff we made for us wanting items to be readily available without having to drill down multiple layers deep for commonly executed items.

We’ll consider this for a future build.

However, in the meantime you might consider customizing the toolstrip menu items. If you want you could put all of your commonly used items on the toolstrip, and then mostly avoid using the right-click menu altogether. See ‘Tools > Customize visible toolstrip buttons’

[Author]

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