Hey Guys, I need suggestions, scripts etc to make our OS patching easier/manageable. Background: Mixed environment with VMware VMs and physicals on multiple AD domains. My VirtualCenter is on domain while WSUS is standalone. All servers point to WSUS via GPO and do a 'wuauclt /detectnow' each hour.
Since the environment is growing rapidly, not all servers were being patched in an 8 hour window so here is what I have now: running a PowerShell script to snapshot vms, shutdown physical servers by running PSShutdown from Domain Controller, break disk mirrors for physical servers, then approve WSUS updates for pertinent groups, then run PSExec from Domain Controller to do a 'wuauclt /detectnow' and 'wuauclt /reportnow'.
By running PSExec for 'wuauclt /detectnow' and 'wuauclt /reportnow' manually, I am able to patch within the window but still requires manual work throughout. Is there a better way I could do this? I believe I can use a script that would do a wuauclt /detectnow then wait say 30 mins, then do a wuauclt /reportnow? Also would like to move script from domain controller to VirtualCenter VM. Any other ideas/suggestions? Please share your knowledge 
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Currently using:
SnapShot Script used (Thanks LucD and David): http://communities.vmware.com/message/2231780
http://vnucleus.com/2011/07/powercli-script-to-alert-on-snapshots-in-vsphere/
Command to shutdown servers: psshutdown.exe -s -f -c -t 30 @physicals.txt
Command to wuauclt /reportnow and wuauclt /detectnow: psexec @VMs.txt -n 30 wuauclt /detectnow > output.txt
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