Windows – Automating WSUS via PowerShell

powershellwindowswsus

I have written a script with the intention of quickly managing the WSUS process, and I have a few things I hard coded in, but would rather get with PowerShell. In particular, the 'Target' groups for Approve-WsusUpdate.

Currently I'm doing something like this:

#Select Target Group for Update Approval:

$TargetComputerGroups = "All Computers", "Unassigned Computers", "Clients", "Servers", "Test", "View Templates"

$UserPrompt = @"

Please select a Computer Group from the below options:

1) All Computers (Selects all of the below)
2) Unassigned Computers
3) Clients
4) Servers
5) Test
6) View Templates

Enter selection
"@

###Record user selection to varirable
$TargetComputerGroupTemp = Read-Host -Prompt $UserPrompt

###Convert their choice to the correct 0-index array value.
$TargetComputerIndex = $TargetComputerGroupTemp -1

$ComputerTarget = $TargetComputerGroups[$TargetComputerIndex]

Is there a 'get-targets' command which will create an array of available target groups? This way I could remove the manual declaration of $TargetComputerGroups.

In addition, I would like to make the $UserPrompt a better set of code (again avoiding manual declarations). I think doing something like '$i for $i in $TargetComputerGroups' write-host 'Press 1 for i'

That being said, I am VERY new to this, so I don't know the best way to do that (ideally mapping their selection to the correct group in that statement!).

Best Answer

You can do it with PowerShell, but you need to have the WSUS administration console installed on the machine too.

You can then do the following.

[void][reflection.assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration")

$wsus = [Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.AdminProxy]::getUpdateServer(“wsus_server”,$False)

$wsus

You can then get a list of target groups with

$wsus.GetComputerTargetGroups()

Or select a group with

$targetgroup = $wsus.GetComputerTargetGroups() | ? {$_.Name -eq "some target name"}

There is much more information in Use PowerShell to Perform Basic Administrative Tasks on WSUS, but the above information will get you information on the groups.

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