Remotely force Windows Auto Update check

[Daisyel]

I’m the admin of a server domain running with Windows Server 2K3. There are few clients configured with the same. I have scheduled windows updates on all my client PCs but I wanted to know if there is any we can force any of my clients to check for updates before or after its scheduled time? I want to it as silently as possible remotely. I did some research and I think it it can be done with the following command but not sure:

psexec %1 -user mydomain\administrator -p %2 wuauclt.exe /detectnow

Can this work? If not, is there any way? Thanks in advance.

[maratha]

Yes ofcourse that command will work. What makes you think that it cannot be done? Just note that the password goes over the network in cleartext. So you can do bit modification in that command and run like this:

psexec \\machinename -s wuauclt /detectnow

Also will suggest you to run this command in an elevated DOS prompt if anything then to avoid the password issue. But it is very bad if you are doing this on a client’s PC silently, without making him know about the same.

[Agilent]

I have done this in past with a small script I found on a website. It works for me, you can give it a try if you want:

' ---------------START CODE---------------
strComputer = inputbox("Enter a computer name to run WUA
detectnow","Invoke detectnow")
if strComputer = "" then wscript.quit
on error goto 0
Set autoUpdateClient =
CreateObject("Microsoft.Update.AutoUpdate",strComputer)
AutoUpdateClient.detectnow()
wscript.echo "All done."
' ----------------END CODE-----------------