Connect to WSUS Database Using SQL Server Management Studio Express

You can use SQL Server Management Studio Express (SQL SMSE) to connect to the internal WSUS database. Do the following.

• If not already done, Install SQL SMSE 2005.
• Run SQL SMSE as Administrator.
• In the Server name drop-down type \\.\pipe\mssql$microsoft##ssee\sql\query
• In the Authentication drop-down select Windows Authentication.
• You can now use SQL SMSE to run queries against the WSUS database (SUSBD).

Servers not showing up in WSUS

So the issue is that I would only see one Terminal Server in WSUS at a time. I would see SERVER1 but then later I would only see SERVER2. Then a little later only SERVER3 & so on & so on.

I thought the issue may be that they all had the same machine SID. To verify this I used a good ole Sysinternals tool called psgetsid. I ran the following command against each server:

psgetsid \\servernam1 >> sids.txt

Looking through the text file confirmed that they did all have the same SID. Turns out all the Terminal Server were based off of a single image & weren’t Syspreped correctly.  Is Syspreped a word? Anyway, they all had the same SID. (Hey I didn’t do it).

The fix is pretty simple. On each server, browse to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate. Delete the values named PingID, SusClientID & SusClientValidation. Now restart the Automatic Update service. Give it a minute then run the following command:

wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow

The server should now show up in WSUS.