Windows Home Server 2011 : Patching Home Computers with WSUS - Connecting Home Computers to WSUS

To connect a client machine to the WSUS server, you must configure the client to check the server for updates instead of Windows Update. That is, you want the clients to use your intranet—your local network running Internet Protocol (IP) services and technologies to communicate with the server—to handle the updates. Here’s how it’s done:

1.	On the client computer, click Start, type gpedit.msc, and then press Enter to launch the Local Group Policy Editor.
2.	Open the Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Update branch.
3.	Double-click the Specify Intranet Microsoft Update Service Location policy.
4.	Select the Enabled option.
5.	In the Set the Intranet Update Service for Detecting Updates text box, type the address of your WSUS server: http://SERVER:8530 (where SERVER is the name of your Windows Home Server machine).
6.	In the Set the Intranet Statistics Server text box, type the address of your WSUS server: http://SERVER:8530 (where SERVER is the name of your Windows Home Server machine). Figure 1 shows a sample policy ready to go. Figure 1. Use the Specify Intranet Microsoft Update Service Location policy to connect a client computer to the WSUS server.
7.	Click OK to put the policy into effect.

If you’re using a Windows client that doesn’t come with the Group Policy Editor, you can also edit the Registry to connect the client to the WSUS server. Click Start, type regedit, and then press Enter to open the Registry Editor. Open the following key:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate

Now create two settings:

• Select Edit, New, String Value, type WUServer, and press Enter. Press Enter again to open the new setting, type http://SERVER:8530 (where SERVER is the name of your Windows Home Server machine), and click OK.

• Select Edit, New, String Value, type WUStatusServer, and press Enter. Press Enter again to open the new setting, type http://SERVER:8530 (where SERVER is the name of your Windows Home Server machine), and click OK.

To confirm that a client is getting updates over the network from WSUS instead of from Windows Update, select Start, Control Panel and then open the Windows Update item. In the Windows Update window, the You Receive Updates value should read Managed by Your System Administrator, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. The Windows Update window should now say that the client’s updates are being managed by the system administrator.