If you download software updates from the Microsoft Update Catalog at http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Install.aspx?referringpage=Home.aspx, you can silently install the downloaded updates from the command line using the Windows Update Stand-alone Installer (Wusa.exe) utility. For example, if the .msu file for “Update for Windows Server 2008 (KB947562)” is named X86-all-windows6.0-kb947562-x86_6ff6b13433eba0503ffcd8e47e1daefac3dc83b4.msu, you can install the update manually using this command:
wusa X86-all-windows6.0-kb947562-x86_6ff6b13433eba0503ffcd8e47e1daefac3dc83b4.msu /quiet
You can use the Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) to view the installed updates on your computer. For example, to verify that the update installed in the previous section has been installed on your computer, do this:
wmic qfe list
Caption CSName Description FixComments HotFixID InstallDate InstalledBy InstalledOn Name ServicePackInEffect Status
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=947562 SEA-SC1 Update KB947562 S-1-5-21-940954651-3993729752-4124607334-500 01c8dc69493cee0b
If the WMIC output is difficult to read, you can use Systeminfo instead, as follows:
systeminfo | find ": KB"
[01]: KB947562
For more information on how to do all these things, see my book Windows Server 2008 Server Core Administrator's Pocket Consultant from Microsoft Press.
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