Remove Unnecessary Updates from WSUS Server

by | Last updated 2023.07.25 | Published on 2020.02.26 | Blog

Removing unnecessary updates will free up a significant amount of space on servers. While WSUS knows when older updates become obsolete and are no longer needed, they remain on the server—taking up space—until *you* remove them.  

You can manually remove unnecessary updates by running the Server Cleanup Wizard (SCW) and selecting which types of updates you no longer need, but that can be extremely time-consuming and can cause errors if you try to remove too many updates at once. Not only that but the SCW is very limited in scope and it cannot be granularly configured.

An easier way to remove unnecessary updates is by using WAM, the only full-featured, easy-to-use, automated WSUS maintenance solution. Once installed, WAM runs daily and will:

Decline Multiple Types of Updates
The default installation of WAM declines superseded updates, expired updates, preview updates, Itanium updates and Beta updates. With the advanced installation, you add other configurable types. The actual removal of the files is done through the Server Cleanup Wizard PowerShell API.

Remove Declined Updates
This feature will ensure that declined updates (from above) are removed from the database quarterly. 

Remove Obsolete Updates
This uses SQL code to execute Microsoft’s stored procedures and will return the update ID of each obsolete update in the database and then remove it.

Not only does WAM automate WSUS maintenance, but it’s also extremely affordable. One Single or Upstream license costs $90 a year

Included in each license is prompt, online support from our support team and any updates to the software throughout the year.

Users report that after the FirstRun, the server is significantly smaller. We post removal records over 300GB and currently, our first place award is 1636.88GB of space freed. Try our software and see if you can beat the current removal record.

Purchase WAM online and save time and server space! 

WSUS Automated Maintenance (WAM) system was developed by AJ Tek and is used by system administrators worldwide—from Australia to Antarctica. With over 50,000 unique downloads, it’s the preferred method of WSUS maintenance worldwide.

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