Deleting declined updates in WSUS

dionoliva · 2023-06-16T02:45:21.000Z

I have declined around 390,000 driver updates and now sitting on Declined updates. How do I delete these? I tried powershell script below where it works if you have less than 1,000 to decline but now keeps failing with errors due to the huge number of declined updates. Any ideas? Thanks.

$wsus = [Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.AdminProxy]::GetUpdateServer();
$declined=$wsus.GetUpdates() | Where {$.IsDeclined -eq $true}
$declined| ForEach-Object {$wsus.DeleteUpdate($.Id.UpdateId.ToString()); Write-Host $_.Title removed }

chris-kelly · 2023-06-16T10:20:04.000Z

Have you tried using the server cleanup wizard via the GUI (ensuring the “Unneeded update files” checkbox is checked)?

kevinhughes2 · 2023-06-16T19:35:14.000Z

Barring someone having a better idea, you could try piping the get with | Select-Object -First 1000

Or something similar. I’m not the Powershell wizard by any means.

dionoliva · 2023-06-22T23:58:07.000Z

Server clean up wizard doesnt clear up the declined updates unfortunately.

Anyone know how to apply the syntax for selecting just the first 1000 of the declined updates to be deleted in powershell?

kevinhughes2 · 2023-06-24T12:33:37.000Z

[reflection.assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration")
$wsus = [Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.AdminProxy]::GetUpdateServer();
$declined=$wsus.GetUpdates() | Where {$_.IsDeclined -eq $true} | Select-Object -First 50 
$declined.Count

Like I said above, just pipe your get through Select-object with First and a number. The above returns 50 as a count.

Running it without the pipe

[reflection.assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration")
$wsus = [Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.AdminProxy]::GetUpdateServer();
$declined=$wsus.GetUpdates() | Where {$_.IsDeclined -eq $true} 
$declined.Count

Returns 426 in my case, which is the current number of declined updates in my DB … I’m overdue for a purge.

I did not include the delete syntax because I didn’t want to remove anything from my live server, but the foreach looks all right at first glance

kevinhughes2 · 2023-06-24T13:55:42.000Z

[reflection.assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration")
$wsus = [Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.AdminProxy]::GetUpdateServer();
$loopcontrol=$wsus.GetUpdates() | Where {$_.IsDeclined -eq $true}
$control=$loopcontrol.Count
DO{
Write-Host "$control left to go"
$declined=$wsus.GetUpdates() | Where {$_.IsDeclined -eq $true}| Select-Object -First 1000  
$declined| ForEach-Object {$wsus.DeleteUpdate($_.Id.UpdateId.ToString()); Write-Host $_.Title removed}
$control=$control-1000
} Until ($control -lt 0)

This should do the trick … it might bomb/bitch on the last loop though

kevinhughes2 · 2023-06-24T14:04:56.000Z

Once my post gets out of moderation (my bad used the female dog word to describe potential behavior on last loop iteration), just one note:

Run it in ISE just in case it doesn’t stop when it should. I’m no Powershell guru.

dionoliva · 2023-06-30T00:07:24.000Z

Thank you Kevin for having a go in helping me with this issue. Unfortunately, I get the errors below when I run it. Im not an expert in Powershell myself and not sure what these errors means:

GAC Version Location

True v4.0.30319 C:\Windows\Microsoft.Net\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration\v4.0_4.0.0…
Exception calling “GetUpdates” with “0” argument(s): "Client found response content type of ‘text/html; charset=utf-8’, but expected ‘text/xml’.
The request failed with the error message:

Overflow or underflow in the arithmetic operation. body {font-family:"Verdana";font-weight:normal;font-size: .7em;color:black;} p {font-family:"Verdana";font-weight:normal;color:black;margin-top: -5px} b {font-family:"Verdana";font-weight:bold;color:black;margin-top: -5px} H1 { font-family:"Verdana";font-weight:normal;font-size:18pt;color:red } H2 { font-family:"Verdana";font-weight:normal;font-size:14pt;color:maroon } pre {font-family:"Consolas","Lucida Console",Monospace;font-size:11pt;margin:0;padding:0.5em;line-height:14pt} .marker {font-weight: bold; color: black;text-decoration: none;} .version {color: gray;} .error {margin-bottom: 10px;} .expandable { text-decoration:underline; font-weight:bold; color:navy; cursor:hand; } @media screen and (max-width: 639px) { pre { width: 440px; overflow: auto; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word; } } @media screen and (max-width: 479px) { pre { width: 280px; } }

Server Error in '/ApiRemoting30' Application.

Overflow or underflow in the arithmetic operation.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.ArithmeticException: Overflow or underflow in the arithmetic operation.

Source Error:


An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace:

[ArithmeticException: Overflow or underflow in the arithmetic operation.]
[HttpException (0x80004005): An error occurred while communicating with the remote host. The error code is 0x80070216.]
System.Web.Hosting.IIS7WorkerRequest.RaiseCommunicationError(Int32 result, Boolean throwOnDisconnect) +4478701
System.Web.Hosting.IIS7WorkerRequest.FlushCore(Boolean keepConnected, Int32 numBodyFragments, IntPtr[] bodyFragments, Int32[] bodyFragmentLengths, Int32[] bodyFragmentTypes) +11947077
System.Web.Hosting.IIS7WorkerRequest.FlushCachedResponse(Boolean isFinal) +743
System.Web.HttpResponse.UpdateNativeResponse(Boolean sendHeaders) +1330
System.Web.HttpRuntime.FinishRequestNotification(IIS7WorkerRequest wr, HttpContext context, RequestNotificationStatus& status) +182

Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:4.0.30319; ASP.NET Version:4.7.3930.0 --." At line:3 char:1 + $declined=$wsus.GetUpdates() | Select-Object -First 10 | Where {$_.Is ... + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodInvocationException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : InvalidOperationException

You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression.
At line:4 char:28

… ForEach-Object {$wsus.DeleteUpdate($_.Id.UpdateId.ToString()); Write- …
CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: ( , RuntimeException
FullyQualifiedErrorId : InvokeMethodOnNull

kevinhughes2 · 2023-06-30T09:36:14.000Z

I get you want to write it yourself for the accomplishment … I think that whole mess of errors comes down to you rearranging the order of the pipes, given it shows your line 3 running select-object first 10 before checking if the update is declined. Powershell pipes process left to right and the order is important. Running get-updates returns all the updates (declined or not, since you didn’t tell it otherwise) then you selected the first 10, then you checked those 10 for being declined. If none of the first 10 are declined, the command as a whole will return a null set. Then your next line tries to run for each on nothing - which is going to throw an error Now look at my code: Get updates where declined is true returns the giant set of declined updates, I then pipe that set of objects into select object first 1000 That will return the first 1000 objects that are declined, which gives the following for each something to work with.

karimboroumand · 2024-04-18T17:11:44.850Z

Thanks Kevin, worked perfectly for me.

spiceuser-lgr6 · 2025-05-02T12:00:03.255Z

Just come across this and worked like a dream!!

Thanks

Server Error in '/ApiRemoting30' Application.<\/h1>\n

Server Error in '/ApiRemoting30' Application.
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