Announcing a smaller WSUS Scan Cab

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The Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) Scan Cab can help determine whether a Windows device needs to install necessary security updates without first connecting to the Windows Update service. Whenever new Windows security updates are released, Microsoft generates a new WSUS Scan Cab that contains the metadata for those updates. Over time, the size of the WSUS Scan Cab has grown to the point that it may cause issues for organizations seeking to distribute it. To address these issues, we've built a new version of the WSUS Scan Cab that is half the size by removing metadata that is no longer needed in offline scan scenarios.

 

We've validated the smaller WSUS Scan Cab works on all supported versions of Windows in all known offline scan scenarios. However, to ensure a smooth transition for customers, we will release the new version of the WSUS Scan Cab over the next several months.

 

From November 2021 to February 2022, we will publish two versions of the WSUS Scan Cab:

 

• The current, larger version at the default location: http://download.windowsupdate.com/microsoftupdate/v6/wsusscan/wsusscn2.cab
  
• The new, smaller version at a temporary, alternate location: http://download.windowsupdate.com/microsoftupdate/v6/wsusscan/wsusscn2_new.cab
   
  Note: This is the URL for the new, smaller version, which will be published next week. As such, it is not currently functional.
  

 

As mentioned above, we have validated the smaller version of the WSUS Scan Cab, but we encourage all customers to validate scenarios from November 2021 to February 2022 to ensure you don't encounter any issues. If you find any issues with the smaller WSUS Scan Cab, please contact Microsoft Support.

 

Starting in March 2022, we will only publish the new, smaller version of the WSUS scan cab to the existing default location: http://download.windowsupdate.com/microsoftupdate/v6/wsusscan/wsusscn2.cab. We are using the existing location because we are aware of some customer tools that have hard-coded the URL for the WSUS Scan Cab, and because the new version is functionally equivalent for offline scan scenarios.

 

We hope this smaller version of the WSUS Scan Cab will alleviate challenges for your organization resulting from distribution of larger WSUS Scan Cab to their devices. We will continue to invest in the WSUS Scan Cab and related use scenarios to improve overall performance and will share any improvements in a future post.

 

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