WSUS to Foreground Mode using PowerShell

Enable Foreground:
$Configuration=(Get-WSUSServer).GetConfiguration()
$Configuration.BitsDownloadPriorityForeground=$true
$Configuration.Save()

Disable Foreground:
$Configuration=(Get-WSUSServer).GetConfiguration()
$Configuration.BitsDownloadPriorityForeground=$false
$Configuration.Save()

Check Foreground State:
(Get-WSUSServer).GetConfiguration().BitsDownloadPriorityForeground

7 thoughts on “WSUS to Foreground Mode using PowerShell

  1. Hi Tyrone,

    Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to work for me.
    After executing:
    (get-wsusserver).getconfiguration().BitsDownloadPriorityForeground = $true

    And querying the same value again with:
    (get-wsusserver).getconfiguration().BitsDownloadPriorityForeground

    The value is still set to False .After restarting the service the value is still false.

    • The problem is that the article as written changes only the in-memory property – it never writes back to the configuration store. Try this to set Foreground download mode:

      $Config = (Get-WsusServer).GetConfiguration()
      $Config.BitsDownloadPriorityForeground = $True
      $Config.Save()

      And this to revert:

      $Config = (Get-WsusServer).GetConfiguration()
      $Config.BitsDownloadPriorityForeground = $False
      $Config.Save()

      It doesn’t seem to need a service restart to take effect (nor should we expect it to, but… you never know!)

      • Thank you! This worked for me when our WSUS server inexplicably stopped downloading updates from Microsoft. It didn’t need a restart. As soon as the setting took effect all the failed downloads kicked in immediately.
        PS: Ours is not SSL-enabled – dunno if that makes a difference.

  2. Thanks for this great tip. When WSUS is in foreground mode, it will download from MS using https instead of BITS, but do clients continue to retrieve updates using BITS?

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