Perform instructions below at your own risk:
To automate windows update these instructions may or may not work for your system however it appears to work to an extent for Windows 7 as these instructions were tested on Windows 7.
MUST READ: 1. If the step below does not work verify then you are most likely part of a domain and your security policy may not allow you to perform steps below! 2. UAC prompts were also disabled for the duration of the windows updates so the batch files can run without interruption; be careful to restore this to default when done
Caution this step will make your computer less secure, immediately remove this after your computer is completely up to date. Set a reminder for 24 hours later if need be:
1.
First you will have to make sure your computer automatically logs into a user. You can do this by clicking start menu, type "netplwiz", press enter or open the wizard, under the users tab, select your username, and un-check "require password", type your password, close this window.
2.
Create 3 batch files to start the automated process. (Open notepad paste each code into a separate notepad and perform a save as corresponding_file_name.bat)
One. Save as: any_name.bat then copy this batch file to your startup folder for the user you made auto login. (Click start > All Programs > Startup)
start "" c:\autoupdate1.bat
exit
Two. Save as: autoupdate1.bat then copy this to C:\ drive
wuauclt /detectnow
wuauclt /updatenow
reg query "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update\RebootRequired" > nul && shutdown -r -t 0
start "" c:\autoupdate2.bat
exit
Three. Save as: autoupdate2.bat then copy this to C:\ drive
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 61 > nul
start "" c:\autoupdate1.bat
exit
Restart or open the batch file in the startup folder and watch the magic begin!
3.
When it is completely done updating just delete the batch files from the startup folder & c:\ drive
Once again follow these instructions at your own risk as it can create an endless loop if you do not know how to stop this process by removing it from the startup folder or going into windows under safe-mode to remove the batch files
Final notes: If you run into issues running the batch files chances are you may have to look up how to disable UAC prompts for your Windows version
Best Answer
If you can put up a WSUS server you can have it download the updates once and distribute them to other machines. You can modify the local group policy of each machine, if you don't use Active Directory (and thus can't use a Group Policy Object), to direct them to your WSUS server.
Failing WSUS, you might consider downloading all the pending updates and use a tool like nLite to slipstream the updates onto your installation media.
This is a real hack, but one other thing you could do would be as follows:
Install one of the machines and allow it to download updates from the "Windows Update" site and present you with a "Ready to install updates" dialog. Then, perform the following:
Stop the "Automated Updates" service.
Open a command prompt and paste in the following commands:
(Those commands will install most of the pending updates silently w/o making backup copies of the replaced files. Be aware that .NET Framework update, MSXML updates, and application updates won't be installed by this method.)
Install the other 2 machines but don't allow them to perform updates automatically. Copy the contents of the "%SystemRoot%\SoftwareDistibution\Download" directory from the first machine to each of the remaining machines and perform the procedure above on those machines.
Remove the contents of the "%SystemRoot%\SoftwareDistibution" on both machines while the "Automated Updates" service is stopped, then reboot and allow the machines to detect updates again. The remaining ".NET Framework" and other updates will be detected and installed.
(That procedure is basically what I do when prepping a new machine w/ updates from WSUS. I manually execute the updates that don't install via the "for ..." loops when they're done, then clean the machine up. I detest having the "$NtUninstall..." directories on brand new machines, and that method prevents them from being created...)