Remotely adding or changing registry keys

Question/Problem:

I want to change the windows auto update settings on several workstations at once, but I don\'t want to go through the whole process of logging them in and changing the options manually. I don\'t want the computers to automatically download their updates. So I am looking at how to manipulate it\'s registry from the command line, but couldn\'t figure it out.

The answer/solution:

This could easily be accomplished by remotely changing the registry setting AUOptions to 2 on those computers. Their is a commandline available for editing the local and remote registry, the following example will change the AUOptions to 2 (0x00000002). If changed to 4 (0x00000004) your workstation will automatically download AND install updates.

reg add \"\\\\COMPUTERNAME\\HKLM\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\WindowsUpdate\\Auto Update\" /v AUOptions /t REG_DWORD /d 2 /f

This only works if you have admin rights on the remote computer. If you don\'t have this, first type this command in the command prompt, replace computername, password and login name with a valid admin account on the remote computer:

net use \\\\computername\\ipc$ password /USER:yourusername

added by Jos on: 11-06-2008

keywords: remote, registry, automatic updates, Windows XP, ,