What are some effective ways to use PowerShell for Windows updates?

1 Check for updates

One of the first things you might want to do with PowerShell is to check for available updates on your system or on a remote computer. You can use the Get-WindowsUpdate command from the PSWindowsUpdate module to do this. This command will display the list of updates, their status, size, and category. You can also filter the results by using parameters such as -KBArticleID, -Title, -Category, or -NotCategory. For example, to check for security updates only, you can run: Get-WindowsUpdate -Category Security

2 Install updates

After checking for updates, you might want to install them on your system or on a remote computer. You can use the Install-WindowsUpdate command from the PSWindowsUpdate module to do this. This command will install all the available updates by default, but you can also specify which ones to install by using parameters such as -KBArticleID, -Title, -Category, or -NotCategory. For example, to install only the updates with the word "critical" in their title, you can run: Install-WindowsUpdate -Title *critical* You can also use the -AcceptAll parameter to skip the confirmation prompt, or the -AutoReboot parameter to restart the system automatically after the installation.

3 Schedule updates

Sometimes, you might want to schedule the updates to run at a specific time or frequency, rather than running them manually. You can use the New-WUJob command from the PSWindowsUpdate module to do this. This command will create a scheduled task that will run the updates according to your settings. You can use parameters such as -Name, -Trigger, -Action, -Credential, or -ComputerName to customize the task. For example, to create a task that will run the updates every Monday at 10 AM on a remote computer, you can run: New-WUJob -Name WeeklyUpdates -Trigger (New-JobTrigger -Weekly -DaysOfWeek Monday -At 10am) -Action (New-ScheduledTaskAction -Execute "PowerShell.exe" -Argument "Install-WindowsUpdate -AcceptAll -AutoReboot") -Credential (Get-Credential) -ComputerName RemotePC