January 19, 2018 at 10:59 am

Hi. im trying to find a solution for our servers (windows 2008R2) when they are going to be pached we have to login to ech server and enable windows update services and start it. I think that this can be done through a invoke-comand script...

Have tried with following scripts Next issue is – After Pathed is done is should disable and stop the services

Get-content "E:\temp\srv.txt" | foreach {set-Service -ComputerName $_ -Name wuauserv -status Stopped | -StartupType Disabled -PassThru}

=============================================================================================
## Script 2  After Pathed is done is should disable and stop the services##
$Serverlist = Get-Content E:\Temp\srv.txt
$service = "wuauserv"
Invoke-Command -ComputerName $Serverlist {Get-Service -Name $service | Stop-Service -Force}
Invoke-Command -ComputerName $Serverlist {Get-Service -Name $service | Set-Service -StartupType disabled}
Get-Service $service | Set-Service -StartupType disabled}

## Script that enable services and start it ##
$Serverlist = Get-Content E:\Temp\srv.txt
$service = "wuauserv"
Invoke-Command -ComputerName $Serverlist {Get-Service -Name $service | Set-Service -StartupType Manual}
Invoke-Command -ComputerName $Serverlist {Get-Service -Name $service | Start-Service}

January 19, 2018 at 3:52 pm

It would be faster to use New-PSSession to create a bunch of session objects against $ServerList. You can then use those sessions with Invoke-Command instead of -ComputerName. Re-using those sessions is a lot quicker than spinning up new sessions each time. See, "Secrets of PowerShell Remoting" on our ebooks menu.

Variables inside the { script block } **are evaluated on the remote machine**. The remote machine won't know what $service contains, because that variable only lives on your local computer. You would use $using:service instead, to transfer the value from your local machine to the remote run space. See https://devops-collective-inc.gitbooks.io/the-big-book-of-powershell-gotchas/content/manuscript/remote-variables.html.

I don't understand what "After Pathed is done" means, though, I'm sorry.

January 19, 2018 at 6:51 pm

Hmm sorry for bad english, AfterPatched is done. I trying to say that after the servers are patched and done the wuauserv must be stopped and set in disabled.

January 19, 2018 at 6:55 pm

So, there's no easy or straightforward way of detecting when the installation is complete. It all depends on the patch being installed. You may have to loop every 5 minutes, for example, and query something like Win32_QuickFixEngineering to see if the hot fix ID shows as installed or not.

January 19, 2018 at 7:28 pm

We use BatchPatch for patching all servers remotely and it works really good.
Just need to get this wuauserv up and kicking before and i dont want to login on each machine for this.

January 19, 2018 at 7:56 pm

You've got the code, where are you having issues?

I'd create a .ps1 file with the following code before patching

#getservice
$service = Get-Service -name wuauserv

#set startup type
$service | set-service -startuptype Manual

#startservice
$service | start-service

then run

invoke-command -computername $serverlist -filepath C:\scripts\startservices.ps1

and to stop them

#getservice
$service = Get-Service -name wuauserv

#stop service
$service | stop-service

#set startup type
$service | set-service -startuptype Disabled

Then run

invoke-command -computername $serverlist -filepath C:\scripts\stopservices.ps1

January 19, 2018 at 8:01 pm

Looks like you can even do it with batch patch!

Remotely Starting and Stopping Services on Numerous Computers

January 19, 2018 at 9:31 pm

Really nice work Jon!! 🙂 works like charm

Yeh seems to work in BatchPatch also, will try to add it in on to my Patch Jobs