In Win XP SP2: Bypassing WSUS GPO ??

Hello to all!

Recently, a colleague came back to have his laptop "reinstalled fresh ". Amongst other things, software was Auto-deployed via our GPO's and in that case, also WSUS updates have been enforced.

This colleague left the office for several months, and now needs some critical updates.

Since the windows updates section in his XP is grayed out, is there a way I can help my colleague update ?

There is no way that we will open WSUS to the internet to let the laptop connect.

I attempted changing the WSUS server from registry, but not sure if this will work.

How can I get updates installed on this "offline" laptop?



Clarification: the Laptop is away from the network and needs to access windows updates but is restricted by the wuau GPO's.

thanks for your time!

MR Sky...

 

You have a couple of options, perhaps the easiest thing would be to establish a VPN from his laptop to your network, and use WSUS to update his system. The alternative, and perhaps better fix if he will never connect to your domain again, is to remove the system from the domain (change XP to workgroup from domain), then manually pull the WSUS registry keys.
I've done this a few times on my personal laptop and its a real pain. I would only recommend doing the second option if his laptop will never connect back in to your domain because if it does, the WSUS GPO settings will be reapplied.

There is also a third option, but it would require you configure another organization unit in your active directory for disconnected Windows clients, and not configure WSUS settings in that OU. Depending on how many other clients you have in this situation, it may be too much work, with little benefits.

 

Thanks !

Well, I also thought of guiding my colleague through changing the "domain" to a workgroup and disjoining it from the domain...

I wanted to keep this option as my very last resort, and it seems it's my only remaining option, unless there is some proper registry "hack "

thanks again for your contribution.