Windows Home Server 2011 : Patching Home Computers with WSUS - Approving Updates

Before an update is sent to a client, the system administrator (that would be you) must approve it. WSUS gives you a hard way to do this (by hand), and an easy way (using a rule).

Approving Updates by Hand

Use the hard way if you want to maintain complete control over the updates that are sent to your client computers. Here’s how it works:

1.	In the Update Services snap-in, open the Update Services, SERVER, Updates branch.
2.	Click the type of updates you want to work with: All Updates, Critical Updates, Security Updates, or WSUS Updates.
3.	In the Approval list, select Unapproved.
4.	In the Status list, select Any.
5.	Click Refresh to see a list of unapproved updates, as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. Display the list of updates awaiting approval.
6.	Select the update or updates you want to approve.
7.	In the Actions pane, click Approve. The Approve Updates dialog box appears.
8.	Click the arrow to the right of All Computers, and then click Approved for Install.
9.	Click OK. WSUS approves the updates.
10.	Click Close.
11.	Repeat steps 2 through 10 to approve other updates.

Approving Updates Using a Rule

The easy route is to take advantage of the approval rules that you can set up in WSUS. In fact, WSUS comes with a default rule that you can run to automatically approve all critical and security updates for all computers.

First, follow these steps to edit the rule to include all the update classifications you want to approve automatically:

To run the rule, activate the check box beside Default Automatic Approval Rule, and then click Run Rule. WSUS automatically approves all the updates in the classifications you selected.