SOLVED: How To Check If WSUS Is Functioning Properly & Reset It If It Isn’t

If you work with Windows Server Update Services you know that it is a bit of a black box.  Fortunately Microsoft has made some easy command line options available.

There are so many things you can do to confirm the WSUS is happy and here are a few.

1: WSUS Utility to Check WSUS Health:

Run this command and then check the EventViewer to see if WSUS thinks it is happy or sad.

"C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools\WsusUtil.exe" checkhealth

2: Surf To The WSUS Apps:

If you want to make sure that WSUS is up, connectivity (firewalls, routes and IIS are good) just open a browser and surf to:

http://server.domain.local:8530/selfupdate/iuident.cab

In case you are wondering where that URL came from, it is what WSUS clients, like Windows 10 PC’s and other servers use to make their connections.  You can easily figure this out by looking at IIS on your WSUS server.

3: How to Easily Reset WSUS:

Run this command and then check the EventViewer to see if WSUS thinks it is happy or sad.

"C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools\WsusUtil.exe" reset

As you can see in the screen shot above the WSUSUTIL utility has many switches which Microsoft explains HERE:

Command	What it enables you to do	When you might use it
export	The first of the two parts that make up the export / import process. The export command enables you to export update metadata to an export package file. You cannot use this parameter to export update files, update approvals, or server settings.	On an ongoing basis, if you are running a network with limited or restricted Internet connectivity
import	The second of the two parts that make up the export/import process. The import command imports update metadata to a server from an export package file created on another WSUS server. This synchronizes the destination WSUS server without using a network connection.	On an ongoing basis, if you are running a network with limited or restricted connectivity
migratesus	This command migrates update approvals from a SUS 1.0 server to a WSUS server.	If you are upgrading your implementation SUS 1.0 to WSUS.
movecontent	Changes the file system location where the WSUS server stores update files, and optionally copies any update files from the old location to the new location	Hard drive is full Disk fails
reset	Checks that every update metadata row in the database has corresponding update files stored in the file system. If update files are missing or have been corrupted, WSUS downloads the update files again.	After restoring the WSUS database. When troubleshooting
deleteunneededrevisions	Purges the update metadata for unnecessary update revisions from the database.	To free up space when an MSDE is full
listinactiveapprovals	Returns a list of update titles with approvals that are in a permanently inactive state because of a change in server language settings.	When you change language settings on an upstream server (that is the parent to a replica server) and want to see which updates are no longer active because they are not in the new languages you have specified. You can run this command if you want to see a list of inactive approvals (for example, to help you decide if you want to remove the inactive approvals). You do not have to run this command before running the removeinactiveapprovals command.
removeinactiveapprovals	Removes approvals for updates that are in a permanently inactive state because of a change in WSUS server language settings.	When you change language settings on an upstream server (that is the parent to a replica server) and want to remove updates that are no longer active because they are not in the new languages you have specified. This would fix the resulting mismatch in the number of updates displayed on the parent and replica servers in this scenario. You do not have to run the listinactiveapprovals command before running this command.