SUS Package Distribution- 8000401a error ?

[Jpoandl]

I am distributing one MS patch
MS05-024 to all of my Windows 2000 servers. The SMS SUS configuration for
the patch itself is set to NOT reboot.

/quiet /norestart

Then my SMS program is set to "SMS Restarts"

In most of my environment, the advertisement runs and the machines reboot
properly. However, in some cases, my clients report a "REBOOT PENDING"
status. After looking at the problematic clients closer, I find an 8000401a
error in the execmgr.log file.

After enabling advanced logging on the client and restarting the SMS client,
I see another error: "service stopped while program <my advertised program>
is prompting for user to reboot"

I have set the program to run in hidden mode and for the most part the
advertisment runs with NO problems. However, 25% of my environment is
showing "pending reboot". All of my SMS 2003 clients are Advanced Clients.
The SMS service is running under the System Account. I have been 100%
successful in previous months deploying patches.

This only happens on a handful of computers. Any ideas?





Joseph L. Poandl
MCSE 2003

If your company is in need of experts to examine technical problems/solutions, please contact

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(Sales@njcomputernetworks.com)

 

[globalstrata]

I have run into this problems few times. I think is due to the fact that the patches try to restart some patches that SMS needs but they hang. So what I have done is

1. Disabled any restart from app and SMS
2. Set the Advertisement to install from say 10pm to 2AM
3. Created another Advertisement that runs an external script to restart the computers say around 4AM.

I have used both of these:

SCRIPT 1
===========================================================
@echo off

for /F %%i in (input.txt) do CALL :RESTART %%i
goto :EOF

:RESTART
psexec \\%1 -d -n 10 shutdown /r /f /t 600 /c "Installing Patches. System rebooting in 10 minutes"
===========================================================

SCRIPT 2
===========================================================
psshutdown -r -f -t 600 -m "Installing Patches. System rebooting in 10 minutes" \\computer @C:\Scripts\computers.txt
===========================================================

The advantage of one over the other is that SCRIPT 1 keeps executing tasks without waiting for the previous task to terminate while psshutdown waits 20 seconds to timeout for any computer that may be turned off. To try to minimize the amount of computer that are off, I use WolCMD from

http://www.depicus.com.

The PsShutDown can also be modified not to wait for the 20 seconds if the script calls PsExec -d <psshutdown .... \\computer %%1>

Hope this helps,



Gladys Rodriguez
GlobalStrata Solutions

http://www.globalstrata.com