Changes of Windows Updates Icon WindowsUpdate Log in Windows 10

Changes of Windows Updates Icon WindowsUpdate Log in Windows 10. Have you noticed the Windows update and WindowsUpdate.log file changes in Windows 10?

Windows Update icon has been removed from the classic control panel! Windows 10 way of reaching Windows Update is via the Start menu and then settings. Kind of Modern application look!

Changes of Windows Updates Icon WindowsUpdate Log in Windows 10

So what happened to WindowsUpdate.log? Is it still in use? We’ll see all these in this post. A one-line command at the bottom of this post can still take you directly to the Windows Update settings!

 https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3036646 provides you with more details as well.

Two topics are covered in this post.

Where is Windows Update setting located in Windows 10?

Where is WindowsUpdate.log in windows 10? 

Where is Windows Update settings located in Windows 10?

Changes of Windows Updates Icon WindowsUpdate Log in Windows 10.

1)  On the setting page, click on the Update and Recovery icon.

2) On the recovery and Update page, you can find the option to check for the latest updates of the Windows 10 preview. As you can see Windows update is getting downloaded in the following screenshot.

3) On the Update and Recovery page, you’ll have another option to go and change advance settings.

4) The Advanced options page will give you options to select “Choose how updates are installed”, do you want Windows to automatically restart the machine after installing the Windows update? The second important option is to have “Choose How Preview Builds are installed“.

Where is WindowsUpdate.log ? 

WindowsUpdate.log is still located in the C:\Windows folder. This log file will give you details about the Windows Update-related activities (in previous versions of windows).

However, when you open WindowsUpdate.log on Windows 10 machine, you’ll be surprised. Changes of Windows Updates Icon WindowsUpdate.Log in Windows 10

Windows update logs are now generated using ETW (Event Tracing for Windows). Please visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=518345 for instructions to decode and obtain windowsupdate.log

So where do we get the log details of Windows Update-related activities in Windows 10 ?, As mentioned in the above stanza, it’s moved to Event Logs, similar to WMI logs! By default, Windows update Logging is NOT enabled; to enable it, follow the process explained below.

1) Launch Event Viewer, run the “eventvwr” command. From the View option in the menu bar, enable “Show Analytic and Debug Logs”. Then browse through Applications and Services Logs -> Microsoft -> Windows.

2) As mentioned above, browse through Applications and Services Logs -> Microsoft -> Windows –> WindowsUpdateClient. You would be able to see two items operational and analytic.

3) By default, these options (operational and analytic) are not enabled; you need to manually enable those (operational and analytic) to track the Windows Update events.

So Bonus:- What is the command for Windows Update “control /name Microsoft.WindowsUpdate”

The above command will open the Windows Update settings on your Windows 10 machine.

Resources

Windows 10 Latest Version Of Client Operating System From Microsoft (anoopcnair.com)

Author

Anoop is Microsoft MVP! He is a Solution Architect in enterprise client management with more than 20 years of experience (calculation done in 2021) in IT. He is a blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group HTMD Community leader. His main focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM 2012, Current Branch, and Intune. E writes about ConfigMgr, Windows 11, Windows 10, Azure AD, Microsoft Intune, Windows 365, AVD, etc…