Wuauclt - options and parameters

Last Updated: 8/20/10

Here are the options for wuauclt.exe. I pulled these out using a hex editor on the Windows XP SP3 version of the file. For some reason microsoft does not support the help flag "/?" on this program and does not document these at all:

/DetectNow
/ReportNow
/RunHandlerComServer
/RunStoreAsComServer
/ShowSettingsDialog
/ResetAuthorization
/ResetEulas
/ShowWU
/ShowWindowsUpdate
/CloseWindowsUpdate
/SelfUpdateManaged
/SelfUpdateUnmanaged
/UpdateNow
/ShowWUAutoScan
/ShowFeaturedUpdates
/ShowOptions
/ShowFeaturedOptInDialog
/DemoUI

Not all of these parameters responded with a visible result on my computer, but many of them did. Try them yourself to see what they do.

The file version was: 7.4.7600.226 which also matched the file version from a Windows 7 computer. My guess is that the same windows update client is on both versions of windows and that some flags are operating system specific.

Also the internal file version is: 7.4.7600.226 (winmain_wtr_wsus3sp2(wmbla).090806-1834). So maybe both machines have the same version because this is a corporate environment with a WSUS server.

Keywords: wuauclt, command line, parameters, switches, options, windows xp, windows update, flags, microsoft