Installing Windows Updates via PSWindowsUpdate - powershell

Question

I am trying to remotely make a domain-computer install its windows updates. This sounds like it should be quite easy, but I've been working on this for over 7 hours now and can't get it to work. I know you can do this via a GPO, but that doesn't give me enough control over the interval. I want our servers to install them and reboot monthly - a GPO can only be used to install and reboot weekly. Since our production works 24/7 I absolutely don't want the servers to reboot outside of the few hours downtime per month I am allowed for maintenance!
I have found several tutorials like this that use the Module PSWindowsUpdate, but these tutorials use an older version of that Module. They use a Function called Invoke-WUInstall which doesn't exist in the newest version. I have tried downgrading the module, but the packagesource doesn't provide versions older than 2.0.0.0
Also the project page doesn't provide a documentation - no examples - neither does it have a discussion or bugtracker. There is a discussion on the page of the original author, but he stopped working on it 2 years ago when it was still the old version.
I tried using Invoke-Command instead of Invoke-WUInstall, but Windows doesn't seem to allow remote update installation like that. PSWindowsUpdate apparently circumvents this problem by running the command as a scheduled task on the target machine, so looking at the output of Get-Command -Module PSWindowsUpdate, I thought I might need to use Invoke-WUJob instead and wrote this code:
Import-Module -Name PSWindowsUpdate
Enable-PSRemoting -Force
ForEach ($hostname in $args) {
Write-Output "Processing $hostname"
Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts -Value $hostname -Concatenate -Force
# Install PSWindowsUpdate on target machine
Invoke-Command -computername $hostname -ScriptBlock {
PackageManagement\Get-PackageProvider -Name NuGet -Force
inmo PSWindowsUpdate -Force
}
# Install the Updates
Invoke-WUJob -ComputerName $hostname -Script {
ipmo PSWindowsUpdate;
Install-WindowsUpdate -install -AcceptAll -IgnoreReboot
} -Confirm:$false -RunNow
}
I run this as a user who has administrative rights on the target machine and the output looks fine, but it didn't do anything.
Does anyone have experience with that module? how do you do this properly in versions >= 2?

Answer 1

Well, i already did something like this and also faced this same problem.
That was my solution:
Create a powershell file to execute your commands. Place all your commands to install the updates there.
Copy this file to the remote server.
You can do something like this:
copy myfile.ps1 \\myserver\c$\temp\myfile.ps1;
Run a remote script to create a registry inside the RunOnce, and the set value with a command to run your script:
Set-ItemProperty "HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce" -Name '!InstallUpdates' -Value "c:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -File c:\temp\myfile.ps1"
Run another command remotelly to restart your server.
The server will reboot and then will execute your script locally.