I’ve been testing out Server 2012 and at one occasion I wanted to install WSUS role on my test server. The installation went smoothly but the post install configuration failed miserably with cryptic errors in the setup log.
I tried with many things suggested on the net… Both with internal and external database, but always failed.
One solution that worked for me is doing a manual installation and performing the post installation configuration with PowerShell. How the heck does this makes a difference – ask Microsoft.
Here is how to install WSUS with external database. I already installed SQLExpress on the machine so why not use it 🙂
Install-WindowsFeature -Name UpdateServices-Services,UpdateServices-DB -IncludeManagementTools
Running post installation configuration form PowerShell (wsusutil.exe is at C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools):
.\wsusutil.exe postinstall SQL_INSTANCE_NAME="HOSTNAME\SQLEXPRESS" CONTENT_DIR=C:\WSUS
For those interested to use Windows Internal Database, just run:
Install-WindowsFeature -Name UpdateServices -IncludeManagementTools
As same as before, after installation run post install configuration by issuing:
.\wsusutil.exe postinstall CONTENT_DIR=C:\WSUS
Of course replace “HOSTNAME\SQLEXPRESS” with your DB instance, and path to your content dir.
thanks! i had the problem
Wow! Thanks! I have tried a lot of different suggestions and I couldn’t get it to finish even with a fresh install.
I had not “C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools” folder with wsusutil.exe file on place, after the role installation. I had to copy it from old wsus server. After that, this manual post-install worked perfectly (and maybe auto-postinstall would work either)
I was having the same issue when setting up WSUS on 2012 R2 Essentials only downloaded from MS within the last month and it seems like there is a lot of people still experiencing this issue when using the ‘Add Server Role’ wizard. After scouring the net I found this page and it helped point me in the right direction to find my answer. I tried various things including a fresh install to no avail.
I had already installed WID and WSUS as server roles through server manager (individually, WID first) and not via PowerShell.
It was at this point I always had issues getting the post-install to run via the UI. Through viewing the log files after the 3rd or 4th attempt I got an error stating that, for some reason, the config (when run through server manager) was attempting to run as my local account, not as Administrator, even though I have Admin privileges.
I ended up getting the post-install to run by using an elevanted PowerShell and running:
.\wsusutil.exe postinstall CONTENT_DIR=C:\WSUS
from within the “C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools” folder.
It worked after that. It seems it requires *the* Administrator account to do the post-install config.
Also, if you’re using the WID, it’s suggested that you install SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and reduce the RAM usage to 512MB (minimum, 1GB preferred) otherwise it’ll use all available RAM on your system. Our server only looks after 10 devices all running the same OS and 3 user accounts so 512MB is plenty. Anything less than 512MB and you’ll end up with a lot of paging done of your DB, and that’s a no no.
if you install SSMS from Microsoft, you can open an elevated PowerShell and do the following. Please note this query only works on Server 2012 (WSUS 4).
osql -E -S \\.\pipe\Microsoft##WID\tsql\query
exec sp_configure ‘show advanced option’, ‘1’;
reconfigure;
exec sp_configure ‘max server memory’, 512;
reconfigure with override;
go
Scared me the first time I did this when I saw the 13 or 15 digit number that was the previous memory limit reduced to a 3 digit number.
Cheers.
It’s still useful and works fine!