How to move your SUSDB (WSUS)

WSUS 3 by default stores its metadata in the "Windows Internal Database". According to wikipedia, this is an embedded version of SQL Express, which ships with Win2k8, Sharepoint Services and WSUS.

So, how move this datastore around?

As with a regular SQL Server datastore, you can detach and move the database.

Download and install required tools

I got the tools from the microsoft website. I downloaded sqlncli.msi and SQLServer2005_SQLCMD.msi

Stop services

The following services must be stopped to be able to detach the database: IIS Admin Service and Update Services (Not Windows Update Service!). To do this, run:
net stop "update services"
net stop w3svc

Move it around

1. Detach the database
"c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\binn\SQLCMD.EXE" -E -S np:\\.\pipe\MSSQL$MICROSOFT##SSEE\sql\query -Q "sp_detach_db 'SUSDB'"

2. Now move the SUSDB.mdf and SUSDB.ldf to their new location. In the example below, we use E:\WSUSDB\. Use explorer to move the files to the path you'd like.

3. Then we reattach the database:
"c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\binn\SQLCMD.EXE" -E -S np:\\.\pipe\MSSQL$MICROSOFT##SSEE\sql\query -Q "sp_attach_db @dbname=N'SUSDB',@filename1=N'E:\WSUSDB\SUSDB.mdf', @filename2=N'E:\WSUSDB\SUSDB_log.ldf'"

Restart services

Restart the services we stopped before. To do this, run:
net start "update services"
net start w3svc

Related info

If you want to move the WSUS data itself as well, please see this page

© GeekLabInfo How to move your SUSDB (WSUS) is a post from GeekLab.info. You are free to copy materials from GeekLab.info, but you are required to link back to http://www.geeklab.info

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5 comments on “How to move your SUSDB (WSUS)”

  1. Thanks, It work perfectly
    On 64 Bit System you could find the SQLCMD.EXE at
    C:\Program Files (x86)
    instead of
    C:\Program Files

  2. thanks a lot..
    worked perfectly

    as Cong said on 64-bit system SQLCMD.EXE is in C:\Program Files (x86) ....

  3. If you don't want to stop your webserver, you could just stop the application pool called WsusPool.

  4. Great tutorial, it does the job as it should. Thank you.

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