WSUS - completely prevent auto restarts on Servers

Lanky Doodle 236 Reputation points
2021-07-31T09:40:43.177+00:00

Hi,

We have WSUS GPOs for servers configured to 'Option 4 - Auto download and Auto-install'. We also have the 'no automatic restart for logged in users' policy set to Enabled.

However we are seeing some evidence of servers rebooting automatically. Interestingly the GPO is set to Sundays at 10pm, however an auto restart happened on a handful of servers on Sunday at 9.55pm (!!), so before the installs actually kicked off. Also some evidence of servers restarting during the day but I've no idea why!

How can I determine what exactly caused the restarts? And how do I completely block all auto restarts at all times with Option 4 configured, to cover all Server OS versions, since 2016 and newer have the Active Hours stuff.

Thanks

Windows Server
Windows Server
A family of Microsoft server operating systems that support enterprise-level management, data storage, applications, and communications.
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  1. Adam J. Marshall 9,431 Reputation points MVP
    2021-08-01T01:54:50.73+00:00
    0 comments No comments

  2. Rita Hu -MSFT 9,641 Reputation points
    2021-08-02T02:11:10.17+00:00

    @Lanky Doodle
    Thanks for your posting on Q&A.

    In my opinion, the computers will try to restart as soon as possible when there are no one logging on the computers enven though the computers enabled the No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations policy.

    Reference picture:
    119520-3.png

    It is recommended to apply the below policies to enable the active hours on the computers. The computers will try to restart out of the active hours:
    119683-4.png

    119711-5.png

    Hope the above will be helpful.

    Regards,
    Rita


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