Troubleshooting WSUS

  • Section(s): Security
  • Published on May 02, 2006.
  • Last Modified on May 02, 2006.
  • Last Modified by Mitch Tulloch.
  • Rated 1.6 out of 5 based on 16 votes.
How to troubleshoot WSUS when clients can't download and install patches.
If you're using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) to download, approve, and distribute patches to computers across your network, then occasionally you may find one of your client machines has problems downloading patches from your WSUS server. If this happens, here's how you can troubleshoot: go to the affected machine and open Internet Explorer and manually connect to the Windows Update (or Microsoft Update) website by opening the URL http://update.microsoft.com on the machine. When you do this, the Update website should provide you with an error code that helps you diagnose the problem that is occuring on your client machine.

About Mitch Tulloch

Mitch Tulloch is a widely recognized expert on Windows administration, networking, and security. He has been repeatedly awarded Most Valuable Professional (MVP) status by Microsoft for his outstanding contributions in supporting users who deploy and use Microsoft platforms, products and solutions. Mitch has published over two hundred articles on different IT websites and magazines, and he has written or contributed to almost two dozen books and is lead author for the Windows 7 Resource Kit from Microsoft Press. For more information, see www.mtit.com .


Article not looking right or info is missing? Let us know so that we can fix it: .


Receive all the latest articles by email!

Receive Real-Time & Monthly WindowsNetworking.com article updates in your mailbox. Enter your email below!
Click for Real-Time sample & Monthly sample

Become a WindowsNetworking.com member!

Discuss your network issues with thousands of other network administrators. Click here to join!

Community Area

Log in | Register

Readers' Choice

Which is your preferred network administration tool?