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What is WSUS Automated Maintenance?

Home WAM What is WSUS Automated Maintenance?

WSUS Automated Maintenance (WAM) © is a software solution that takes the maintenance required for WSUS and automates it. It was created by Adam J. Marshall and is licensed on a yearly subscription basis through AJ Tek.

There are a number of different areas that require maintenance for WSUS. Some of them are:

  • Backing up the database.
  • If using the Drivers category, removing the current listed drivers to clean up the bulk of the drivers that are old and not used. New drivers will sync normally.
  • Declining multiple types of updates including superseded, beta, preview, expired and Itanium by default.
  • Compressing update revisions.
  • Cleaning up computer objects.
  • Renaming OS descriptions to make it easier to identify systems.
  • Cleaning up the synchronization logs with Microsoft.
  • Removing declined updates from the database.
  • Running the database maintenance routine.

  • Running the Server Cleanup Wizard (SCW)

WAM allows you to take back control of your WSUS instance (or SUP/DP instances in an SCCM environment) and frees up time for other priorities. If WSUS is not maintained properly, it will become slow, bloated, and cause errors that will take away valuable time from an IT Administrator to troubleshoot and resolve.

WSUS is a necessary tool for basic Windows patch management, and fortunately it is free. After having spent WAY TOO MUCH time managing WSUS trying to keep it healthy and reliable, I realized it’s “less free” than I thought – after all, time is money! What is your time worth?

Spend much time with the inevitable troubleshooting and repairing of WSUS, and you’ll soon discover mentioned in many forums a seemingly cure-all for WSUS’ woes, WSUS Automated Maintenance by AJ Tek. Though it once was free, it is now an extremely affordable subscription-based offering.

The install couldn’t have been easier, and it is very impressive the scope in which it keeps WSUS healthy. True to it’s name, it truly is an excellent Automated Maintenance solution for WSUS. Also impressive is the prompt reply to a question I had that I received from the author, which hints at the responsive support I can expect to receive as a new, paying, and very satisfied customer!
Thumbs UP ! Keep up the good work.

Bryan Keadle, Systems Engineer
Bryan Keadle, Systems Engineer Village of Palatine, USA August 31, 2018
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I have been using this software for over 3 years now, like many, many customers when it was free. It is simply the best possible maintenance software that exists and is a must for a every WSUS system. Totally worth the price. This software should be bundled with WSUS by default. No other WSUS script on the market even comes close to what this software can do and is still getting better, year after year.

Thumbs UP ! Keep up the good work.

Patrick Charaoui, Systems Administrator - Maximus-Systems
Patrick Charaoui, Systems Administrator - Maximus-Systems Quebec, Canada March 5, 2020
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Features

Super Easy Installation

Guided installer for a simple installation experience. It also comes with an unattended installation procedure for easy deployment to multiple systems, or for server core installs.

Support Included

Support is included for active subscriptions on the latest version of the software.

Simple Configuration Experience

The installer handles the configuration experience. You take the standard installation (blue USB), all defaults are selected. You take the advanced configuration (red USB), you stay in WSUS-land and we show you just how far the WSUS hole goes. Remember: all we’re offering are plentiful options.

Backup the WSUS Database

Backs up the WSUS database (WID or Local SQL Server). Remote SQL Servers should have an alternative method like an enterprise backup solution already so WAM will not back them up.

Indexes the WSUS Database

Add WSUS Index Optimization to the database to increase the speed of many database operations in WSUS by approximately 1000-1500 times faster.

Remove Drivers

Remove all existing drivers from the WSUS Database trimming down the number of updates in the database. If the Drivers classification is checked, new driver updates will sync and will be kept under control (Default; Optional).

Remove Obsolete Updates

This stream will use SQL code to execute Microsoft’s stored procedures that will return the update id of each obsolete update in the database and then remove it.

Compress Update Revisions

This stream will use SQL code to execute Microsoft’s stored procedures that will return the update id of each update revision that needs compressing and then compress it.

Remove Declined Updates

Remove declined updates from the WSUS Database.

Decline Multiple Types of Updates

Shrink your WSUSContent folder’s size by declining multiple types of updates. There are over 80 types of updates possible for declining for full customization. The default selected ones are superseded updates, expired updates, preview updates, Itanium updates, and Beta updates.

List of Update Types

  1. Superseded
  2. Expired
  3. Preview
  4. Itanium
  5. Beta
  6. IE7
  7. IE8
  8. IE9
  9. IE10
  10. Microsoft Edge (Stable)
  11. Microsoft Edge (Beta)
  12. Microsoft Edge (Dev)
  13. LanguagePacks
  14. SharepointUpdates
  15. ComputerUpdates32bit
  16. Embedded
  17. ARM64
  18. WinXP
  19. Windows 7
  20. SecurityOnly
  21. ThirdParty
  22. Win10_1507
  23. Win10_1511
  24. Win10_1607
  25. Win10_1703
  26. Win10_1709
  27. Win10_1803
  28. Win10_1809
  29. Win10_1903
  30. Win10_1909
  31. Win10_2004
  32. Win10_20H2
  33. Win10_21H1
  34. Win10_21H2

Microsoft Office Types

Selectable Versions with individually selectable architecture [x86, x64, or Both]

  1. Office 2002/XP
  2. Office 2003
  3. Office 2003, Office 2007 (Some updates are released for both products)
  4. Office 2007
  5. Office 2010
  6. Office 2013
  7. Office 2016
  8. Office 2019
  9. Office 365 Client

Specific Language Types

  1. Arabic (Saudi Arabia) (ar-SA)
  2. Bulgarian (Bulgaria) (bg-BG)
  3. Czech (Czech Republic) (cs-CZ)
  4. Danish (Denmark) (da-DK)
  5. German (Germany) (de-DE)
  6. Greek (Greece) (el-GR)
  7. Spanish (Spain) (es-ES)
  8. Spanish (Mexico) (es-MX)
  9. Estonian (Estonia) (et-EE)
  10. Finnish (Finland) (fi-FI)
  11. French (Canada) (fr-CA)
  12. French (France) (fr-FR)
  13. Hebrew (Israel) (he-IL)
  14. Croatian (Croatia) (hr-HR)
  15. Hungarian (Hungary) (hu-HU)
  16. Italian (Italy) (it-IT)
  17. Japanese (Japan) (ja-JP)
  18. Korean (Korea) (ko-KR)
  19. Lithuanian (Lithuania) (lt-LT)
  20. Latvian (Latvia) (lv-LV)
  21. Norwegian (Bokmal) (Norway) (nb-NO)
  22. Dutch (Netherlands) (nl-NL)
  23. Polish (Poland) (pl-PL)
  24. Portuguese (Brazil) (pt-BR)
  25. Portuguese (Portugal) (pt-PT)
  26. Romanian (Romania) (ro-RO)
  27. Russian (Russia) (ru-RU)
  28. Slovak (Slovakia) (sk-SK)
  29. Slovenian (Slovenia) (sl-SI)
  30. Serbian (Latin, Serbia) (sr-latn-rs)
  31. Swedish (Sweden) (sv-SE)
  32. Thai (Thailand) (th-TH)
  33. Turkish (Turkey) (tr-TR)
  34. Ukrainian (Ukraine) (uk-UA)
  35. Chinese (Simplified) (zh-CN)
  36. Chinese (Hong Kong) (zh-HK)
  37. Chinese (Traditional) (zh-TW)

Rename OS Descriptions

This stream will rename the operating system descriptions of client systems in the WSUS MMC console. You can then use the GUI Console to sort by the OSDescription to easily gain valuable insights into what operating systems are installed in your organization.

Windows Clients

  • Windows 10 Home
  • Windows 10 Pro
  • Windows 10 Pro N
  • Windows 10 Pro for Workstations
  • Windows 10 Pro N for Workstations
  • Windows 10 Enterprise
  • Windows 10 Enterprise N
  • Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB/LTSC
  • Windows 10 Education
  • Windows 10 Education N
  • Windows 10 Pro Education
  • Windows 10 Pro N Education

Windows Clients

  • Windows 11 Home
  • Windows 11 Pro
  • Windows 11 Pro N
  • Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
  • Windows 11 Pro N for Workstations
  • Windows 11 Enterprise
  • Windows 11 Enterprise N
  • Windows 11 Enterprise LTSB/LTSC
  • Windows 11 Education
  • Windows 11 Education N
  • Windows 11 Pro Education
  • Windows 11 Pro N Education

Windows Server

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter
  • Windows Server 2012 Standard
  • Windows Server 2012 Datacenter
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter
  • Windows Server 2016 Essentials
  • Windows Server 2016 Standard
  • Windows Server 2016 Datacenter

Windows Server

  • Windows Server 2019 Essentials
  • Windows Server 2019 Standard
  • Windows Server 2019 Standard Evaluation
  • Windows Server 2019 Datacenter
  • Windows Server 2022 Standard
  • Windows Server 2022 Standard Evaluation
  • Windows Server 2022 Datacenter
  • Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016
  • Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019

Clean Synchronization Logs

Clean out all the synchronization logs that have built up over time (configurable, with the default keeping the last 14 days of logs).

Computer Object Cleanup

Computer Object Cleanup (configurable, with the default of deleting computer objects that have not synced within 30 days).

Prune IIS Logs

The Prune IIS Logs Stream will delete all log files (that is, files ending with .log) found in the logging folder for the WSUS IIS site. By default, the stream will remove log files older than 2 weeks. Files are checked not based on the date they were created, but when they were last modified.

Server Cleanup Wizard

Runs the built-in Server Cleanup Wizard (SCW) to actually carry out the removal of files on the file system.

Display Newly Added Products & Classifications

If you are interested in keeping track of what new products and/or classifications have been added to WSUS, we have included a stream that will include this information in the WAM report. The default will display new products and classifications that have been added to WSUS in the last 31 days.

Database Maintenance

Run the Recommended SQL database Maintenance script on the actual SQL database.

Reporting Options

Save the Report

You can set it up to always save the report. Options for either TXT (default) or HTML.

Email the Report

You can set it up to always email the report. Options for either TXT or HTML (default). You can also have it as a PDF Attachment to the email. If the report fails, WAM will fall back to saving the report storing a TXT log file. The TXT log that it creates will be prepended with the notification that the email failed to send and will give the full error message for troubleshooting.

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WAM Utilities & The WAM Shell

To aid administrators we have developed a few utilities for adjusting certain WSUS settings, which are especially convenient for WSUS installs on servers that lack a graphical user interface. We have redesigned the WAM Shell to expose the utility Cmdlets that we have written to adjust your WSUS environment.

Get-ApplicationPoolMemory
Set-ApplicationPoolMemory
Get-SchUseStrongCrypto
Set-SchUseStrongCrypto
Get-WsusIISLimitInterval
Set-WsusIISLimitInterval
Get-WsusIISQueueLength
Set-WsusIISQueueLength
Get-WsusWebExecutionTimeout
Set-WsusWebExecutionTimeout
Get-WsusWebMaxRequestLength
Set-WsusWebMaxRequestLength
Get-WsusIISLoadBalancerCapabilities
Set-WsusIISLoadBalancerCapabilities
Get-WsusIISMaxCachedUpdates
Set-WsusIISMaxCachedUpdates
Get-WsusIISMaxInstalledPrerequisites
Set-WsusIISMaxInstalledPrerequisites
Add-ESDMimetype
Reset-ESDMimetype
Remove-ESDMimetype

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