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- Critical Updates: Broadly released fixes for specific problems addressing critical, non-security related bugs.
- Updates: Broadly released fixes for specific problems addressing non-critical, non-security related bugs.
- Update Rollups: Cumulative set of hotfixes, security updates, critical updates, and updates packaged together for easy deployment. A rollup generally targets a specific area, such as security, or a specific component, such as Internet Information Services (IIS).
- Security Updates: Broadly released fixes for specific products, addressing security issues.
- Service Packs: Cumulative sets of all hotfixes, security updates, critical updates, and updates created since the release of the product. Service packs might also contain a limited number of customer-requested design changes or features.
- Feature Packs: New feature releases, usually rolled into products at the next release.
- Definition Updates: Updates to virus or other definition files.
- Upgrades: Windows Upgrade (e.g. Windows 11 22H2)
You can combine classifications by just combining the letters:
- C (Critical Updates)
- U (Updates)
- R (Update Rollups)
- S (Security Updates)
- E (Service Packs)
- F (Feature Packs)
- D (Definition Updates)
- A (Upgrades)
For example
WUInstall.exe /search /criteria "IsInstalled=1" /classification CRSE generates the following output:
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Each update belongs to a product (for example Office 20072019/365, Windows 10, Windows 711, Forefront Client Security, ...). It is also possible to filter results of a search (which match the specified criteria) by a product name.
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Searching for updates ... Criteria: IsInstalled=1 Result Code: Succeeded 96 Updates found in total, filtering ... Listing those matching search expression: 'KB890830' 1. Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - August 20102022 (KB890830) Severity: Unknown UpdateClassification - Update Rollups Product - Windows 7 |
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For example, searching for all updates that match "Internet Explorer 811", the Term "Language" or "KB89", you type:
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Searching for updates ... Criteria: IsInstalled=1 Result Code: Succeeded 96 Updates found in total, filtering ... Listing those matching search expression: '(Language|KB89|Internet Explorer)' 1. Update for Microsoft Office Language Pack 20072019 (for Office Outlook 20072019 with Business Contact Manager ) (KB946307) Severity: Unknown UpdateClassification - Critical Updates Product - Office 20072019 2. Update for Internet Explorer 811 Compatibility View List for Windows 710 (KB982632) Severity: Unknown UpdateClassification - Updates Product - Windows 710 3. Update for Internet Explorer 811 Compatibility View List for Windows 710 (KB982664) Severity: Unknown UpdateClassification - Updates Product - Windows 710 4. Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 811 for Windows 7 (KB2183461) Severity: Critical UpdateClassification - Security Updates Product - Windows 710 5. Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - August 20102022 (KB890830) Severity: Unknown UpdateClassification - Update Rollups Product - Windows 710 |
/nomatch "regex"
This is quite the opposite of the /match option: it filters out all the updates that do match the regular expression and displays the rest (=the updates which do NOT match).
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Searching for updates ... Criteria: IsInstalled=1 Result Code: Succeeded 96 Updates found in total, filtering ... Listing those NOT matching search expression: '(Windows|Microsoft)' 1. MSXML 6.0 RTM Security Update (925673) Severity: Critical UpdateClassification - Security Updates Product - SQL Server Feature Pack 2. Update for Business Contact Manager for Outlook 20072019 (KB946140) Severity: Unknown UpdateClassification - Critical Updates Product - Office 20072019 3. Security Update for SQL Server 20052018 Service Pack 3 (KB970892) Severity: Critical UpdateClassification - Security Updates Product - SQL Server 2018 2005 4. Update Rollup 10 for Exchange Server 20072019 Service Pack 1 (KB981407) Severity: Unknown Product - Exchange Server 20072019 UpdateClassification - Update Rollups |
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With the /matchfile option you can specify multiple /match parameters.
Just write the desired update matches (regular expressions are supported) into a file and specify this file as the matchfile.
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95 Updates found in total, filtering ... Listing those matching search expressions in file: 'c:\updateList.txt' 1. Update for Microsoft Script Editor Help (KB963671) Severity: Unknown Product - Office 2007 UpdateClassification - Updates 2. Security Update for Windows 7 (KB975467) Severity: Important UpdateClassification - Security Updates Product - Windows 7 3. Definition Update for Microsoft Forefront Client Security (Security State Assessment 1.0.1710.103 Full) Severity: Unknown UpdateClassification - Definition Updates Product - Forefront Client Security 4. Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Security Update for Windows 711 x86 (KB979916) Severity: Important UpdateClassification - Security Updates Product - Windows 711 |
This option is useful when you keep a central list of updates to be rolled out on your machines in a shared directory (use this list as the matchfile).
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/nomatchfile is quite the opposite of the /matchfile option: use it if you want to specify multiple /nomatch parameters (if you want to exclude a list of updates).
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WuInstall puts out for example the following result list: 95 Updates found in total, filtering ... Listing those NOT matching search expressions in file: 'c:\exclude.txt' 1. Update for Business Contact Manager for Outlook 20072019 (KB946140) Severity: Unknown UpdateClassification - Critical Updates Product - Office 2019 2007 2. Security Update for SQL Server 20052019 Service Pack 3 (KB970892) Severity: Critical UpdateClassification - Security Updates Product - SQL Server 20052019 3. Update Rollup 10 for Exchange Server 20072019 Service Pack 1 (KB981407) Severity: Unknown Product - Exchange Server 20072019 UpdateClassification - Update Rollups |
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30 Updates found in total, filtering ... Listing those matching search expression: 'Greek' 1. Greek Language Pack - Windows 710 (KB972813) Severity: Unknown UpdateClassification - Updates Product - Windows 710 Language Packs Downloading updates ... Downloading Greek Language Pack - Windows 710 (KB972813): |
and then later use:
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Code Block | ||||
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30 Updates found in total, filtering ... Listing only updates which are already downloaded 1. Greek Language Pack - Windows 710 (KB972813) Severity: Unknown UpdateClassification - Updates Product - Windows 710 Language Packs |
Deleting updates manually from the local download cache (usually Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download) might cause this option to work incorrectly, because even deleted they are still considered downloaded.
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WUInstall.exe /search /releasedate lt:20142022-05-06
You will get following output:
Code Block | ||||
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3 Updates found in total, filtering ... Listing those where release date lt 20142022-05-06 1. Microsoft Visual Studio 20102019 Service Pack 1 Severity: Unknown UpdateClassification - Service Packs Product - Visual Studio 2019 2010 ID: 230b82d1-3abd-471a-a4f9-23f97fb857d9 Releasedate: 20122022-04-05 Eula Accepted: true |
The second way to use this options is to specify a number of days. This only lists all If you specify a negative value, this only lists all updates with release date after today minus the given days.
If you specify a positive value (+10) then wuinstall lists all updates that are 10 days or older.
Example:
WUInstall.exe /search /releasedate -+10
This will list all updates which are not older than 10 days:
Code Block | ||||
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3 Updates found in total, filtering ... Listing those with release date afterbefore 20142022-04-26 1. Definition Update for Windows Defender - KB2267602 (Definition 1.173.1428.0) Severity: Unknown UpdateClassification - Definition Updates Product - Windows Defender ID: 4f25e1f8-186e-4d0b-b18c-6dab7c081c09 Releasedate: 20142022-0503-06 Eula Accepted: true |
/maxUpdateCount number
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This option sets a maximum accumulated size for all updates. WuInstall will iterate through the list of found updates and only those where the accumulated size is lower than specified.
/query_history
Include a list of all previously installed updates on the machines in the XML output file by utilizing the query_history options. If the /xmlout parameter is not specified, this option will not be taken into account.