Autopatcher.net

I recently stumbled across Autopatcher and had some questions about how the application works. I will be updating a few machines that are basically identical. Rather than updating them separately, I would like to download it once and transfer to all of them manually.

One of the machines already had the most recent Windows Updates (i.e. Clicking check for updates produces no new updates, optional or otherwise). I would like to have all these currently installed updates prepped to be moved to another machine.

With all the updates installed from Windows Update, I ran Autopatcher and gathered the updates for several things. It is a Windows 7 (x64) machine, so I checked the Autopatcher Windows 7 SP1 (x64) box. .NET Framework, Microsoft Security ENU addon, Microsoft Redistributes and Adobe Acrobat Reader DC.

After downloading, I wanted to compare what was downloaded versus what is currently installed. I checked some 5 items in the download folder against what was currently installed. To my surprise not a single item (of the 5) in the folder was installed on the machine.

So what is Autopatcher actually doing when it is downloading Windows Update? Can I set it up to obtain all updates for a machine so I can transfer them to a computer and apply the same patches?

Firstly welcome to the forum.

Autopatcher is designed exactly as you described, download the required updates and these can then be installed on any system (matching OS of course).
The releases contain the latest updates for a particular OS or other category. The superseded updates are replaced with the latest. This is where you will notice the difference between Autopatcher's list of updates and Windows Update.
To simplfy, use Autopatcher to update a fresh install to a point where all the updates you require are installed, then enable Windows Update to download those that MS determine as missing but still required.

It is ideal to disable Windows Update while running Autopatcher, then re-enable when you have completed thew task.

Hope this helps you understand.

Thanks for the reply. I was not aware that there were updates that would supersede other updates. So typically Windows Update service does not remove these (old) updates when updates that supersede it are applied?

i.e. KB000001 is currently applied and KB000002 supersedes KB000001, Windows will keep both 1 and 2?

Often until a service or a cumalative pack is installed you will see older updates that the newer ones replace. I have seen a few critical updates remove a few older ones but, it's rare.

Thank the both of you for taking the time to respond.