WSUS: manage user experience

Question

Hello, I'm implementing WSUS (WS 2016) in my domain. Since especially in this COVID period my clients are far from the domain, I decided to configure settings using registry keys pushed by our management systems. Clients are registering and reporting their status and it's fine. Now I am trying to manage the user experience: what happens when the update is released and what happens when the deadline is reached. I am testing this with the Windows 10 2004 update on some test clients. I tried several configurations of attributes in the key "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU" regarding reboot options, rescheduling, avoid reboot when users are logged, but nothing seems to work. In my specific case (type of installation is "upgrade" with 2004) after the client installs the 2004 upgrade, a popup comes out (with mentioned "your organization is managing update settings") and informs the users that the machine will be rebooted in 15 minutes. No way to postpone or control it. This happens also if the deadline that I set has not been reached. Can you please advise on a set of keys that would work with WSUS, at least to give the user the option to postpone the restart?

Answer 1

@Cappelletti Mauro
Thank you for posting in Microsoft Q&A forum.
Under HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU, set AuOptions to 4 and enable NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers.
Note: if a user schedules the restart in the update notification, it will override this setting.

For the details:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-restart#delay-automatic-reboot
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-restart#registry-keys-used-to-manage-restart

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