Installing Windows Server Update Services

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is a built-in feature of Server 2012 that can be installed in any Server 2012 edition. The update service provides simplified, centralized management of updates in your environment. This feature inventories the updates installed on computers, downloads the updates, and then distributes them to clients as defined by the administrator.

For WSUS to function, two steps are needed: install the Update Services feature, and perform the initial configuration, which is referred to as the postinstall phase. This postinstall phase finalizes the WSUS installation by configuring the database and location to store the updates.

Getting ready

To perform this recipe, we will be using a domain-joined server with access to the Internet. Once the Update Services feature is installed, we will perform the initial configuration of the system and perform the initial update synchronization. All of the tasks shown will be performed locally...