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Conflict with WSUS not applying "turn off auto-restart during active hours"

Mike Surerus 0 Reputation points
2024-03-21T18:41:37.64+00:00

We experienced an issue with one of our servers rebooting during the day to apply an update that failed to install initially. We have "Configure Automatic Updates" set to 4 - Auto download and schedule the install at 3 am. We also have "Turn off auto-restart for updates during active hours" and "Always automatically restart at the scheduled time" configured as well.

Group policy is applied correctly on the server, but further investigating reveals that "Always automatically restart at the scheduled time" is causing "Turn off auto-restart for updates during active hours" to not apply.

If we disable "Always automatically restart at the scheduled time", which group policy needs to be changed/updated to ensure the servers still restart automatically at 3 am?

This is the first time I've experienced this, but I would like to find a solution so it doesn't lead to larger issues of servers rebooting during the day.

Windows
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Windows Server
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A family of Microsoft server operating systems that support enterprise-level management, data storage, applications, and communications.
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  1. Wesley Li 6,760 Reputation points
    2024-03-22T03:24:23.06+00:00

    Hello

    To ensure that your servers still restart automatically at 3 am, you can create a Group Policy Object (GPO) to schedule a reboot. Here are the steps:

    1.Identify Target Computers: Determine which servers you want to schedule the reboot on.

    2.Create a Group for Exclusions: If there are certain servers that need to be excluded from the reboot, put those servers into a group and deny them access to the reboot GPO.

    3.Create the Scheduled Reboot GPO:

    Open the group policy management console.

    Right-click on the Organizational Unit (OU) you identified in step 1 and select “create a GPO in this domain, and Link it here”.

    Give the GPO a name.

    If you have any servers that need to be excluded, add them as members to the exclusion group you created in step 2. Deny the “apply group policy” permission for this group.

    Open the GPO and browse to Computer Configuration -> Preferences -> Control Panel Settings -> Scheduled Tasks.

    Right-click Scheduled Tasks and select Scheduled Tasks (At least Windows 7).

    Create a new task that triggers a reboot at 3 am.

    Removing or disabling the GPO that created the task will not remove the task on the target computers. If you decide the task needs to be disabled, you will need to deploy a separate GPO to delete it or manually delete it from the computer.

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