"Using WSUS without Active Directory"

Using WSUS without Active Directory - The Lazyadmin.com

"Windows Software Update Server (WSUS) is a great product that can be used to push out updates to your Windows computers. If you are deploying it in an Active Directory domain, you can use a GPO to quickly and easily configure your computers to use Automatic Updates and look to the WSUS server for those updates. But what if you are not using AD, can you still use WSUS? Yes.....

WSUS works just as well in Non-AD enviroments although the configuration is a bit more work on the client side. In order to control the behaviour of Automatic Updates and point the computers to the WSUS server there are a number of registry entries that have to be modified and/or created. To begin, open up regedit ..."

I've recently needed to start looking again at automated patching. While the machines I would be using WSUS with are members of a AD domain, I may not be able to get the settings pushed out with GPO (Think "segmented" WSUS... not silo'ed/rouge... um... yeah, "segmented" that's it... :| ).

Now I just need to find the time to install WSUS, configure, test, deploy the reg file to client pc's, train the operators and turn over operations...

(via Tiernans Comms Closet - using WSUS without Active Directory)