Windows Update from Power Shell or Command Line

Windows Update from Power Shell or Command Line

^{Created: 2020-03-01 19:28:58 | Last modified: 2020-04-13 07:00:33}
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Here is how to use windows update from PowerShell or the command line

Using Power Shell

You can use powershell to check for updates by using a third party module. You can install the module by running a number of power shell commands. Note: Run power shell as administrator to run these commands

Install-Module PSWindowsUpdate

Run the Windows update to see what updates are available

Get-WindowsUpdate

Now you can install the updates using the following command

Install-WindowsUpdate

Troubleshooting

You might get the following message, this is because execution on third party scripts is restricted.

To fix this you need to set the execution policy as per below

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

To disable this again you can run the following

Set-ExecutionPolicy Restricted

To uninstall the module, you can run the following

Uninstall-Module PSWindowsUpdate

Command Line (cmd)

Here is is how to run from the command line

# Check for new updates
wuauclt /detectnow 

# Install updates
wuauclt /updatenow

You can run the follow to check for updates and install at the same time

wuauclt /detectnow /updatenow

There are a number of other options that can be used with wuauclt

StartScan – Check for updates
StartDownload – Download updates
StartInstall – install downloaded updates
RestartDevice – Restart Windows after updates have been installed
ScanInstallWait – Check for updates, download and then install