eG Monitoring
 

Measures reported by WinUpdateStatusTest

Microsoft regularly releases various Windows updates to enhance and protect a Windows system. These updates fix newly discovered security holes and bugs, add malware definitions to Windows Defender and Security Essentials utilities, strengthen Office security and add new features/enhancements to the system. By installing these updates regularly, you can keep your system highly secure, reliable and stable, and can maintain the performance of the system at peak. If the Windows system is not updated regularly, the critical bugs and security errors may increase vulnerabilities of the system. These vulnerabilities can be exploited by the malware or hackers, thus exposing your system to malicious attacks and degrading the system's performance. To avoid such eventualities, you should regularly check whether the system is up-to-date or not. This check can be easily done using the WinUpdateStatusTest test.

This test continuously monitors the Windows system and reports the current status of the Windows updates on the system. Besides, this test indicates whether any update is pending on the system and whether the system is rebooted or not. In the process, this test also reports the total number updates to be installed for the system and the number of Windows updates of different types at regular intervals.

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the Windows system being monitored.

The measures made by this test are as follows:

Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation
Update_instal Indicates whether/not the updates are pending.   The values that this measure can report and the numeric values they indicate have been listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
No 0
Yes 1

Note:

By default, this measure can report the Measure Values mentioned above while indicating whether/not the updates are available. However, the graph of this measure is indicated using the numeric equivalents.
Rebot_pending Indicates whether the Windows system is rebooted or not.   The values that this measure can report and the numeric values they indicate have been listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
No 0
Yes 1

Note:

By default, this measure can report the Measure Values mentioned above while indicating whether the system is rebooted or not. However, the graph of this measure is indicated using the numeric equivalents.
Update_state Indicates the current status of the Windows update service.   The values that this measure can report and the numeric values they indicate have been listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Unknown 0
Running 1
Start pending 2
Continue pending 3
Pause pending 4
Stop pending 5
Paused 6
Stopped 7

Note:

By default, this measure can report the Measure Values mentioned above while indicating the current status of Windows update service. However, the graph of this measure is indicated using the numeric equivalents.
Tot_update Indicates the total number of Windows updates available for the system. Number The detailed diagnosis of this measure, if enabled, lists the Windows updates available for the system and the categories of the available updates.
Crit_update Indicates the number of critical updates available for the system. Number A critical update is a widely and frequently released update that deals with the specific, non-security related, critical bugs. If these bugs are not fixed quickly, they can cause serious performance degradation, interoperability malfunction or disturb application compatibility.
Impt_update Indicates the number of important updates available for the system. Number The important updates help fixing the vulnerabilities using which malware/hackers can exploit the system resources or steal data. This in tun may leave the confidentiality and integrity of the system defenseless and make the user data unavailable.
Moderate_update Indicates the number of moderate security updates available for the system. Number The moderate updates fix a vulnerability whose exploitation can be mitigated to a significant degree by default configuration, auditing, or difficulty of exploitation.
Low_update Indicates the number of low security updates available for the system. Number These updates fix the vulnerability whose exploitation is extremely difficult.
Option_update Indicates the number of optional updates available for the system. Number An optional update includes Feature Pack and standard Updates, and does not have a severity rating.