Disable WSUS location on client

Alerts and Toolboxes
1

Thought I would share a quick toolbox.

This is for if you have a WSUS server installed and your clients get updates from it. Sometimes you just need to get updates directly from Microsoft. To do that you need to tell your client not to check your WSUS server.
This disables the registry key of the WSUS location on the client, effectively forcing it to check Microsoft for updates. Has been super useful for me, hope it helps others.

Disable the registry key and restart wuauserv service.

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU" /v UseWUServer /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
net stop wuauserv
net start wuauserv

Enables the registry key and restart wuauserv service.

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU" /v UseWUServer /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
net stop wuauserv
net start wuauserv
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2

I’ve had a number of computers/servers lately that had a local host set (most times an obsoleted server) for updates, causing the computer just to give a dummy reply to the effect of ‘Can’t reach update server’. Not a helpful message. I had found this hint elsewhere a while back. Helpful then and helpful here and now!

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