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Mowing the Grass

WSUS Operations Management

The Microsoft WSUS newsgroup often includes questions about database size, and storage size.  While Microsoft provides some high-level recommendations - each WSUS Administrator has a certain amount of control over how big the database grows, and how much disk space the updates consume.  We'll refer to this process as "Mowing the Grass":

First, always decline updates that aren't needed, updates that have expired, and updates that have been superseded (as appropriate).  Make sure to decline updates first - otherwise you won't free any space from your hard drive by running the tools mentioned below. 

Second, you should run the following two utilities on a regular basis (monthly is a good rule of thumb):

  • WSUSUtil (with the deleteunneededrevisions switch)
  • WSUSDebugTool (using the purgeunneededfiles tool)

WSUSUtil is installed on each WSUS server by default, and WSUSDebugTool is available for download on the main WSUS site (www.microsoft.com/wsus).

Note: Make sure to stop the WWW service on your WSUS box before running WSUSUtil.  You can restart it again after the utility completes.  WSUSDebugTool requires no such preparation/follow-up.

WSUSUtil:

Below is an overview of the WSUSUtil operation.  This operation takes three steps since you must stop the WWW service before running WSUSUtil.

Step1: Stop the WWW Service

WSUSutil-step1

Step 2: Run the WSUSUtil tool

Note: This step might take a while - especially the first time it is run.  If the utility times out and fails, simply run it again until it succeeds.

WSUSUtil-step2

Step 3: Restart the WWW Service

WSUSUtil-Step3

That's it!  Your xMSDE or SQL database is now free of unneeded update revision metadata.

WSUSDebugTool:

Unlike the WSUSUtil tool above, the WSUSDebugTool actually reclaims space from your hard drive by removing declined update files.

WSUSDebugTool

Comments:

From kevinroyalty - 2/4/08 12:55 PM

yes - I want to automate this for all my customers (approx 50), so a command line is preferred.

From Virulon - 1/31/08 9:58 AM

I'm pretty sure that the Server Cleanup Wizard takes care of both of these items for you in 3.0

Under Options, select Server Cleanup Wizard.

WSUS Server Cleanup Wizard

This is a great new tool but the one part I am still wishing for is that I could schedule it to running periodically (like weekly or on the Friday before Patch Tuesday, etc.)

From kevinroyalty - 1/30/08 1:13 PM

I have 2 questions.

1) With WSUS 3, it seems that WSUSUTIL no longer has the purgeunneedefiles option

2) Is it safe to use WSUSDEBUGTOOL with WSUS 3?

From pjkelly - 6/20/07 11:20 AM

The issue you are experiencing is a result of replica servers.  The replicas were set with either multiple languages, or different rules, or different product listings.  Even though the settings are not changable on the replica in "replica mode", some prior settings were unaltered.  Uninstall WSUSv3 on your replicas leaving the wsuscontent, reinstall WSUSv3, and the problem should disappear.

From ronkw - 6/19/07 3:44 PM

Upgraded to V 3.0 this AM with zero glitches and then ran the Server Cleanup Wizard. It actually seemed to work without the *!&@^#$% circular downloading of removed updates. Hoorah!

From TomLamond - 6/5/07 4:04 PM

I wouldn't even worry about this. WSUS 3.0 does all this by itself.

From rstyles - 5/30/07 1:58 PM

I guess then I'm not alone. No one has a fix/suggestion?

From ronkw - 5/15/07 3:25 PM

I agree with TheDV8or! I dutifully clean up my WSUS server only to have it immediately download the same files. What's with that??? I noticed this behavior started only a couple months ago.

From TheDv8or - 5/11/07 10:56 AM

Along the lines with what rstyles said, I noticed that after I purged the unneeded update files, my WSUS server simply started downloading those very same files I purged.  What's the point if it's only going to reset itself to previous status?

From rstyles - 3/9/07 3:23 PM

I'm wondering if anyone else is seeing the problem I'm having. I have a nightly run to clean up the WSUS database (PurgeUnneededFiles) and every night I get a successful run that says a whole list of files were deleted. The next night it runs again and gives the exact same list of files. Now I've run the same batch job during the day and it does the following:

*** START MAINTENANCE ***

Fri 03/09/2007

 

Attempting stop...

 

Internet services successfully stopped

 

Database cleanup is in progress, please be patient Database cleanup has completed successfully Running... PurgeUnneededFiles Starting a state machine reset...

State machine reset completed...

Deleted File d:\WSUS\WsusContent\E0\0113AADD04E13627D485C972F9E12410850F16E0.exe

. 

Several HUNDRED deleted files

.

.

.

d:\WSUS\WsusContent\7A\FEF6B6C56FCA6937C8D8B23F67BE4CFCD289EA7A.cab

Deleted File d:\WSUS\WsusContent\58\FFD8D1DC2390F95DB25E52E7F6EDFA76FA539E58.CAB

Fri 03/09/2007

 

Attempting start...

 

Internet services successfully started

 

*** END RUN ***

Then, the next run, I get a listing of the EXACT same output. Is there something not getting deleted?

Thanks for your input.

From mjalmassud - 1/7/07 5:17 PM

This article is very greate and acurate.

 I had 3.1 GB available drive space, and after following this article, the available srive space is 37.6 GB.

 

Thanks you so much

From gibilix - 12/14/06 5:01 AM

Regarding the problems with the Replica mode when purging declined updates with WsusDebugTool, I have found and followed the following procedure to avoid problems:

  1. Set the master to Manual synchronization
  2. Manually sync the master from Windows Update
  3. Set all replica servers to manual synchronization
  4. Manully sync all replica servers
  5. Run the WsusDebugTool on the master to purge declined updates
  6. Reset the master to automatic synchronization
  7. Reset all replicas to automatic synchronization

More details at http://www.vbshf.com/vbshf/wsus/wsus_faq.htm

 

From centimano - 11/27/06 3:38 PM

JRV - thanks for the heads-up.  Images are now fixed.  I'll update the page again soon w/ thumbnails instead of full images... out of respect for everyone's bandwidth.  Thanks again. --Jeff Centimano

From JRV - 11/21/06 2:14 PM

At this writing, all the screen shots are displaying as red X's.

From Bucky - 2/23/06 1:52 PM

Don't do this if you have replica servers; this causes a problem on replica servers with EULAs.

SqlException: Cannot roll back AcceptEulaForReplicaDSS. No transaction or savepoint of that name was found.
Transaction count after EXECUTE indicates that a COMMIT or ROLLBACK TRANSACTION statement is missing. Previous count = 1, current count = 0.
at Microsoft.UpdateServices.DatabaseAccess.DBConnection.DrainObsoleteConnections(SqlException e)
   at Microsoft.UpdateServices.DatabaseAccess.DBConnection.ExecuteCommandNoResult()
   at Microsoft.UpdateServices.Internal.NoResultSPHandler.ExecuteStoredProcedure(DBConnection connection)
   at Microsoft.UpdateServices.Internal.GenericDataAccess.ExecuteSP(String spName, DBParameterCollection args, IExecuteSPHandler handler)
   at Microsoft.UpdateServices.Internal.DataAccess.ExecuteSPNoResult(String spName, DBParameterCollection args)
   at Microsoft.UpdateServices.Internal.DatabaseAccess.AdminDataAccess.ExecuteSPAcceptEulaForReplicaDSS(Guid eulaId)
   at Microsoft.UpdateServices.ServerSync.CatalogSyncAgentCore.ProcessAcceptedEulas(Guid[] acceptedEulas)
   at Microsoft.UpdateServices.ServerSync.CatalogSyncAgentCore.CatalogSyncThreadProcessReal(Boolean allowRedirect)

 

From AxelLarson - 1/30/06 2:42 PM

I finally found it under "WSUS Server Diagnostic tool" at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/updateservices/support/default.mspx.

From AxelLarson - 1/30/06 2:30 PM

Exactly where is WSUSDebugTool? The only thing I can find on the Microsoft site is a page of directions on how to use it.

Last Modified 11/27/06 3:25 PM

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