Shutting a Windows Server down without installing updates

 

If you have ever needed to shut down a server but it wants to install updates which you know will take longer than your service window you can use the following command to prevent the issue until you reboot.

 

net stop wuauserv

 

This will stop the Windows Update Service (at least until you reboot)

 

Hope this helps someone

Group Policy Setting - Verbose vs normal status messages

During a major roll out of software using Group Policy on a Windows 7 Client System, I had cause to want to know what was happening during the roll out, to see if any software was sticking. To enable more detailed messages on screen (other than "Please Wait") enable the following in an appropriate GPO:

Computer > Policies > Administrative Templates > System > Verbose vs normal status message

This setting displays a number of extra status messages during the start up and shutdown of the computer and when the user is logging on and off. Some of the verbose status messages you will see are (but not limited to):

Software Deployment
Mapping Drives
Playing Logon Sound
Mapping Printers
Applying Power Settings
Stopping Services

You will still see your Applying Computer settings and Preparing Desktop messages however these will be shown for a lot shorter time.

Also by enabling this option end users think that their PC is faster, due the reduced time each message is displayed. It certainly seems to speed it up for me anyway. This is still a handy setting to enable as at the very least will help your IT support troubleshoot log on performance issues.

This setting will work on Windows 2000 and above and it will also show the processing of newer Group Policy Preferences.

Original Source:
http://www.grouppolicy.biz/2009/11/group-policy-setting-of-the-week-2-verbose-vs-normal-status-messages/

KB974909 Hyper-V network connection dies

Virtual machines running in Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2, Datacenter, Enterprise and Standard editions may occasionally lose their network connection during either high throughput or with multiple concurrent connections.

Restoring the connection can only be achieved by restarting the virtual machine.

By downloading and installing the patch found at knowledge base article KB974909 this problem will be alleviated, however this does require you to restart the host machine.