Do windows update on uploded image stored on fog server
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Hi
since microsoft constantly release windows patches, I would like to know if the fog server has the capabilities to do windows update on uploded image stored on fog server?if not is there any solution for that?
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Ok that would be a HOT feature. Please say it’s so.
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There’s an old piece of software called nLite that allows you to put windows updates onto a Windows installation ISO.
http://www.nliteos.com/index.html
It’s not open source and doesn’t work on anything newer than Windows XP unfortunately.
But, it does serve as a proof-of-concept for what is being asked here.
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Not exactly.
What you’re asking is for FOG to handle Windows’ automatic updates? Are you asking if it can update while they’re on the server? Are you asking if FOG Client will run updates when the system is booted?
In either case, FOG Client, and the FOG Server, does not (nor will it) perform any updates on your images. This is because all FOG does is capture blocks of data. The FOG Client method is “feasible” but not really necessary as at that point you’re already booted into Windows, Just let Windows run the updates. To perform updates on Windows from the FOG Server really wouldn’t work, because you’re Windows Images are typically stored to a Linux filesystem. While we could mount the directories and potentially add the windows updates, we would constantly need to know what updates. At that point, it’s simpler to just Deploy the image to another (or the same) client, boot to windows, run updates, and reupload the image.
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I decided to solve this problem a different way. I created a snap in that launches a VBscript that I found and modified to run updates on the image when deployed. WindowsUpdates_1.2.vbs This script runs updates and installs them, as long as they are not hidden. It will continue to run and install updates until it runs a check and finds none left.
I still have a practice of downloading the images to a machine and updating them every 2-3 months to avoid 100’s of updates over time. But this works really well to make sure they get updated every time they are deployed.
This also has the added benefit of being able to be run anytime you want to force updates to a particular system. It does not reboot automatically, but Windows updates prompts for reboot if needed.
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Another “why is this under Forum Issues?” Moving to feature requests.
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It would be very difficult to inject Windows updates into an image, but what this thread should be talking about is to spin up a VM with those image files. This would allow you to run updates, install programs, maintenance, etc. It seems stupid to me that the conversation didn’t go there. Why would you spend all your resources updating this FOG server software for it only to do windows update? Tom Elliott, that is a waste of time. Deploying an image to a PC and then running updates just to capture it. Just setup WDS and run a VM. This feature already exists and it seems like it wouldn’t be that difficult. Maybe some button to deploy to a VM within the FOG Server.
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@rmurra81 We don’t appreciate being called stupid. There are already open source solutions that specialize in building machine images from scratch, notably packer. For the closed source crowd that likes paid support, there is MDT. WDS is a worse solution than FOG - and not everybody cares to keep images with current patches constantly - at my previous job we built images from scratch once a year manually. Others do a quarterly image via MDT. Still others use snapins to apply patches post-deployment. Still others use Group Policy coupled with WSUS to update systems.
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@rmurra81 I don’t if you’re trying to crack at me or not. I’m siding that you aren’t and you’re suggesting by this being in “feature” requests you think I’m “wasting effort” to make this thing a feature.
As we have it, this is not really the case. A feature request does not necessarily mean it will be something I will be adding. This thread was opened in 2015 so I’m not sure what the “hope” for resurfacing this was. I understand what’s being requested, but it’s likely not something I’m going to put much effort into, considering I really want to focus my efforts toward FOG 2.0.
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why would you want to blindly apply windows updates post image anyway? surely you should be going through some form of testing at least…?
maybe that varies in different environments and we have to air on the side of caution because if our systems go down/stop working people start dying… lol
@rmurra81 said in Do windows update on uploded image stored on fog server:
It would be very difficult to inject Windows updates into an image, but what this thread should be talking about is to spin up a VM with those image files. This would allow you to run updates, install programs, maintenance, etc. It seems stupid to me that the conversation didn’t go there. Why would you spend all your resources updating this FOG server software for it only to do windows update? Tom Elliott, that is a waste of time. Deploying an image to a PC and then running updates just to capture it. Just setup WDS and run a VM. This feature already exists and it seems like it wouldn’t be that difficult. Maybe some button to deploy to a VM within the FOG Server.
that’s how you should be building your images… build on VM, snapshot/create checkpoint before sysprep/capture… when you need to apply windows updates to your “image”, revert vm to snapshot/checkpoint - apply windows updates, snapshot again before sysprep/capture etc etc etc…
you’ll have a cleaner image building on VM and you avoid rearm restriction as theoretically your image only ever gets sysprepped once (as you revert to unsysprepped state before applying changes/update)
so that’s not a feature needed in FOG that’s a learning curve or a “suggestion” if you’d like that we need to teach FOG administrators…
“Maybe some button to deploy to a VM within the FOG Server”… that’s what the deploy task button is for
unless i’ve been up far too long and i’m reading that wrong, you clearly don’t understand the architecture behind virtualisation if you think that could be implemented so easily. it would kill most environments just trying to implement that and most FOG Servers are being hosted on a VM already so then you’re talking about nested VMs and that’s just the tip of the iceburg on that head ache… can of worms springs to mind just to do something you can already easily and quickly do a thousand different ways as wayne and tom pointed out a few belowEdit: Just read the other thread you’re discussing this - if you mean deploy the image to a vm, you can do that like you would a physical machine, register the VM within FOG and deploy image, do your updates and maintenance etc etc and then capture, don’t think i fully understand your VM Feature request, maybe you could explain better?
