Update for Delivery of Windows XP SP2 Through SUS

Published: August 19, 2004 | Updated: November 09, 2004

By The TechNet Team

Microsoft on August 19 released an update to the Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) installer package for Software Update Services (SUS) to enable silent installations of SP2. System administrators who approved the SP2 update on their SUS server before the update was available should consider re-synchronizing their SUS server if they want to perform installations that do not require user interaction.

On This Page

Situation
Status
Guidance for SUS Administrators
Manual Method to Force Automatic Updates Detection

Situation

Windows XP SP2 was made available for download to SUS servers on Monday, August 16, 2004. Unlike installations of Windows XP SP2 deployed directly via the Automatic Updates or Windows Update features of Windows XP, deploying Windows XP SP2 via SUS allows IT administrators to deploy the update without requiring user interaction (referred to as a “silent install”) on the Windows XP machines.

However, due to an error in the install parameters included in the package initially made available for download to SUS servers, customers who had approved the update for deployment on their SUS servers found that the SUS client did not install the update silently and that user interaction was required. This was not a problem with Windows XP SP2 itself, but rather with the install parameters specified in the package delivered to SUS servers.

Note:  The fix was made available at approximately 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time on Thursday, August 19, 2004. Only SUS administrators who approved the Windows XP SP2 update on their SUS server before that time, and who did not re-synchronize their SUS server after the fix was made available, would be affected by this issue. To verify that the SUS server has the package with the correct installer switches, go to the Approve updates page on the SUS server, click the Details link for the Windows XP SP2 package, and verify that the Setup Parameters are:

-q -z

Status

The problem was corrected and the updated package was made available for download to SUS servers at approximately 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time on Thursday, August 19, 2004.

Guidance for SUS Administrators

SUS administrators need to synchronize the SUS server to get the updated package information.

Note:  Synchronization will not re-download the XP SP2 package if it has already been downloaded to the SUS server’s content directory. The only item downloaded for this synchronization is the aurtf.cab (less than 1MB), which contains the metadata for the updates.

If the SUS server is set for daily scheduled synchronization, the new install parameters will be picked up automatically the next time the server synchronizes with the Microsoft site.

If the SUS server is not set for daily scheduled synchronization, or if the SUS administrator desires to pull the corrected content down immediately without waiting for the next scheduled synchronization, a manual synchronization needs to be performed. To do this:

  1. In the SUS Admin user interface, click the Synchronize Server link.

  2. Click Synchronize Now.

After synchronization, ensure that the Windows XP SP2 update has an “approved” status since it might be listed as either “new” or “updated” unless the SUS server is configured to automatically approve updated items.

Any client computer that has already detected or downloaded the Windows XP SP2 package from the SUS server will need to be forced to re-run detection in order to pick up the updated install parameters and install SP2 silently.  This can be done either manually on each XP machine that received the SP2 update or through a scalable administration mechanism, such as Active Directory-based Group Policy or administrative scripting. Note that the clients will download the entire Windows XP SP2 package from the SUS server. For information on controlling the load on the SUS server and the internal network, please see the guidance provided at https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/xpsp2sus.mspx

Manual Method to Force Automatic Updates Detection

To manually force detection by Automatic Updates:

  1. Open services.msc.

  2. Locate the Automatic Updates service and click Stop the service.

  3. Open regedit.exe.

  4. Navigate to:
    HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update

  5. Delete the LastWaitTimeout and DetectionStartTime registry keys if either or both exist.

  6. Ensure that the AUState registry key is set to a value of:

    0x2
  7. Close regedit.exe.

  8. In services.msc, locate the Automatic Updates service and click Start the service.

  9. Close services.msc.

  10. Wait approximately 10 minutes for Automatic Updates to do detection, and then download the Windows XP SP2 update again.