How to Configure Update Management and Scheduled Maintenance in Essentials

  • Article

Applies To: System Center Essentials 2010

Configuring Update Management

To start deploying updates to managed computers, you must complete the Update Management Configuration Wizard to synchronize the management server with the Microsoft Update Web site. You should typically complete these tasks immediately after you install System Center Essentials 2010.

Several settings can affect the behavior of the update management feature in Essentials 2010. Most of those settings apply to the synchronization of the updates. For example, you can configure settings such as the type and language for the updates that you want to deploy in your organization, whether a proxy server should be used to connect to the Microsoft Update Web site, and a synchronization schedule.

After the initial configuration of update management, you can modify any update management setting to support new requirements in your organization.

To initially configure and synchronize update management

  1. The first time that you run Essentials, under Essential Configuration incomplete, select the Required: Configure Microsoft Update settings option.

  2. Complete the Update Management Configuration Wizard. On the Summary page, select the Synchronize updates when this wizard closes option.

  3. Finish the wizard.

To subsequently configure update management by using the Update Management Configuration Wizard

  1. In the Essentials console, click the Updates navigation button.

  2. In the Updates Overview pane in the Tasks list, select the Configure Microsoft Update settings option.

  3. Use the Update Management Configuration Wizard to update settings and complete the wizard.

    Note

    The wizard contains a Synchronization page that performs synchronization. The synchronization must complete before you can continue updating settings.

To subsequently configure individual update management settings

  1. In the Essentials console, click the Administration button.

  2. Select the Settings node by expanding Administration in the Administration pane.

  3. In the Settings node, under Type: Update Management, double-click any update management item that you want to configure.

Configuring Scheduled Maintenance

Updates to the Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) database caused earlier versions of Essentials to run slowly because, over time, the WSUS index tables were becoming increasingly fragmented. In addition, there was no way to remove updates and software packages that were no longer required. In this release of Essentials, you can configure scheduled maintenance to ensure that the WSUS database is regularly re-indexed to remove updates and packages that are no longer required and to delete updates and software packages for inactive subscriptions. Configuring scheduled maintenance reallocates disk space and improves the overall performance of Essentials.

To re-index the WSUS database and clean up content

  1. In the Essentials console, click the Administration button, and then click Settings.

  2. In the Settings node, under Type: Update Management, double-click Maintenance.

  3. In the Update Management Settings – Maintenance dialog box, select the Schedule maintenance check box. Select the frequency and start time for maintenance from the drop-down list boxes provided.

    Tip

    You can also click the Updates button, and, in the Updates Overview pane in the Tasks list, click Configure Windows Server Update Services Maintenance to change these settings.

  4. Under Database maintenance, select the check box Re-index to defragment the updates database at the scheduled time. You can also click the Re-index Now button to perform database maintenance manually.

  5. Under Updates maintenance, select the check box Decline unneeded updates to remove any updates that are not required, have not been approved, or have been superseded by other updates in the last 30 days. You can also click the Decline Now button to decline unwanted updates manually.

  6. Under Updates maintenance, select the check box Update canceled or renewed subscriptions to decline updates for inactive subscriptions. You can also click the Update Now button to update canceled or renewed subscriptions manually.

    Note

    Updates maintenance does not remove unwanted or inactive subscriptions to non-Microsoft updates in Essentials 2010.

  7. When you have completed the configuration of these maintenance settings, click OK to save the changes.

If Essentials 2010 downloads more updates than you require, try one of the following workarounds to resolve the issue:

  • Configure Essentials 2010 to automatically download updates. Only updates that are relevant to your computers are downloaded. For more information about how to configure Essentials 2010 to automatically download updates, see How to Configure Essentials to Automatically Select and Approve Updates.

  • Configure Essentials 2010 products and classifications to download only critical, security, and service pack updates, or clear the Drivers check box if you have manually specified the update classifications to synchronize. For more information about how to configure Essentials 2010 update classifications, see How to Configure Essentials to Automatically Select and Approve Updates.

  • Configure Essentials 2010 update management settings to schedule maintenance and remove files that are no longer needed. For more information about how to configure scheduled maintenance, see Configuring Update Management.

  • Configure Essentials 2010 to download updates from Microsoft Update instead of storing update files locally on the Essentials management server. For more information about how to configure scheduled maintenance, see Configuring Update Management.