Appendix H: The wuauclt Utility

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The wuauclt utility allows you some control over the functioning of the Windows Update Agent. It is updated as part of Windows Update.

Command line switches for wuauclt

The following are the command line for wuauclt.

Option	Description
/a /ResetAuthorization	Initiates an asynchronous background search for applicable updates. If Automatic Updates is disabled, this option has no effect.
/r /ReportNow	Sends all queued reporting events to the server asynchronously.
/? /h /help	Shows this help information.

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Community Content

BigBadJohn

Other switches

I've never seen wuauclt /? display anything useful.

However, if you want to initialize Windows Update to install updates on a client, use wuauclt /detectnow.

Tags : contentbug

Bradwarr

To Overcome automatic detection frequency setting !!

The "automatic detection frequency" on clients node are 1 hour. can i force the client to detect the newly approved update without waiting for one hour.

I tried to use wuauclt.exe /detectnow but it did not help.

Did you use both /detectnow and /r /reportnow

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Preston Carter

No help

wuauclt /?, wuauclt /help, wuauclt /h does not work. Where is documentation for /detectnow?

@LuckyLindy: Documentation for /detectnow here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc708575%28WS.10%29.aspx

Tags : contentbug

rich,fieler

report now steps

I Found that I had to do both

wuauclt /a /detectnow

and then

wuauclt /r

for an update to occur

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aehill1309

This works well. Save to a .cmd or batch file and run.

net stop wuauserv
REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v LastWaitTimeout /f
REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v DetectionStartTime /f
Reg Delete "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v NextDetectionTime /f
net start wuauserv
wuauclt /detectnow

Tags : update wsus force