Vista - Has anyone used Powershell to script WSUS?

I've written a script which will fetch a category and classification on the
WSUS server; for instance 'Windows XP' and 'Critical Updates', 'Security
Updates', 'Service Packs', 'Update Rollups' respectively.

Most of it went smoothly however I had to jump through some hoops that I am
at a lose to see why it was necessary.

WSUS will return instances of these collections

[Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateClassificationCollection]

and

[Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateCategoryCollection]


These collections have the following hierarchy

[Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateCategoryCollection] is
derived from [Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.WsusCollection] who's
base class is[System.Collections.CollectionBase]


The trouble is when either of these are returned in by a function the object
type which gets returned is a System.Object[]. Powershell doesn't have any
problem instanciating either of these types but it will change this into a
object[]

The second problem is if either of these are used within a Pipeline assigment

$updates = $updates2 | where {$_.IsSuperseded -eq $false}

Powershell again change the type within the expression to object[] and
returns the error that it can't convert System.Object[] to
[Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateCategoryCollection]

As an aside I've read hear I believe that Powershell can't work with
generics does anyone know whether this is true?

To the best of my knowledge these are generics


thx
bob

Bob Landau wrote:Post some code? I have a WSUS service I could test against, but I haven't
scripted against it yet.


--

Hal Rottenberg
Blog: http://halr9000.com
Webmaster, Psi (http://psi-im.org)
Co-host, PowerScripting Podcast (http://powerscripting.net)

Thanks Hal,

Just so you know I do have the code working correctly I've found work-arounds.

But I don't believe that Powershell is handling the marshaling correctly
when the return value is passed back or when your assigning the results of a
pipe expression.

I send you a small subset of my code tomorrow. The entire code is just too
big to post.

"Hal Rottenberg" wrote:

Hal

Here is about as simple a script as I can come up with. This only shows the
UpdateClassificationsCollection problem since the UpdateCategoryCollection is
identical.

The main reason why I need these typed collections rather than object[] is
IUpdateServer.GetUpdates requires these.

The script assumes your running this on your WSUS box if this is not the
case you'll need to change the name from localhost to XXX

================================================
Set-Alias -name OUTPUT -value Out-Null

function Filter_Classification ( [string[]] $classifications = $null)
{
$(

## Documented as returning a collection of IUpdateClassification
[Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateClassificationCollection]
$server_Classifications = $server.GetUpdateClassifications()
) | OUTPUT

Write-Host "In function: returning $($server_Classifications.GetType())`n"
$server_Classifications
}

########################################## Start of script
#########################################


[Reflection.Assembly]::Load( 'Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration,
Version=3.0.6000.273, Culture=Neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' )

[Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.IUpdateServer] $server `
=
[Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.AdminProxy]::GetUpdateServer('localhost', $false, 80 )


## How I'd like to call the below method is as below. This is breaks the
following error
[Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateClassificationCollection]
$classifications `
= Filter_Classification 'Critical Updates', 'Security Updates',
'Service Packs', 'Update Rollups'

## Cannot convert "System.Object[]" to
"Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateClassificationCollection".

## The work around is to call the function which returns a
UpdateClassificationCollection class as the type System.Object[]
$object = Filter_Classification 'Critical Updates', 'Security Updates',
'Service Packs', 'Update Rollups'

## Next create an empty WSUS classification collection
[Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateClassificationCollection]
$update_Classifications `
= new-object
Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateClassificationCollection

## Lastly copy each [System.Object] class into the newly instanciated
UpdateClassificationCollection class
$object | foreach { $update_Classifications.Add($_) | Out-Null}

Write-Host "Why does gettype() not understand the underlying type?
`$update_Classifications is $($($update_Classifications).gettype())`n"
Write-Host "`$update_Classifications -is
[Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateClassificationCollection]"
$update_Classifications -is
[Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateClassificationCollection]

## Same problem when a the results are returned by a pipe to work it must be
a generic [system.object[]]
[Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateClassificationCollection]
$update_Classifications2 `
= new-object
Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.UpdateClassificationCollection

Write-Host "`nWriting the collection to another instance using a pipeling.
This fails like in the above case`n"
## Silly example but keep it simple
$update_Classifications2 = $update_Classifications | % {$i=0}{Write-Host
"`$update_Classifications[$i] $($_.gettype())"; $i++; $_ }

Bob Landau wrote:FYI:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scr....mspx?mfr=true

Some PowerShell examples there.

Marco

--
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http://www.microsoft.com/mvp

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Blog:
http://marcoshaw.blogspot.com