Manage Windows 10 IoT Updates on Dell Thin Clients Efficiently

Affected Platforms:

• Dell Thin Clients

Affected Operating Systems:

• Windows 10 IoT LTSC 2021

From time to time, Microsoft releases updates to Windows that do not apply to Dell’s Windows 10 IoT Thin Clients, but they still show up as missing QFEs when an update operation is performed.

For example:

The recent KB5034441 update failed to apply to Dell’s Windows 10 IoT 2021 LTSC thin clients because the required partition was not present, but Windows kept identifying it as missing.

Powershell script to hide KB5034441:

The following PowerShell script example hides KB5034441. It can be modified to hide other Microsoft updates as needed by modifying the Hide-Windowsupdate command.

# This section of code will restart the script with elevated privileges if it is not already running elevated
# Get the ID and security principal of the current user account
$myWindowsID=[System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent()
$myWindowsPrincipal=new-object System.Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal($myWindowsID)
 # Get the security principal for the Administrator role
$adminRole=[System.Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltInRole]::Administrator
 # Check to see if we are currently running "as Administrator"
if ($myWindowsPrincipal.IsInRole($adminRole))
   {
   # We are running "as Administrator" - so change the title and background color to indicate this
   $Host.UI.RawUI.WindowTitle = $myInvocation.MyCommand.Definition + "(Elevated)"
   $Host.UI.RawUI.BackgroundColor = "DarkBlue"
   clear-host
   }
else
   {
   # We are not running "as Administrator" - so relaunch as administrator
   # Create a new process object that starts PowerShell
   $newProcess = new-object System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo "PowerShell";
   # Specify the current script path and name as a parameter
   $newProcess.Arguments = $myInvocation.MyCommand.Definition;
   # Indicate that the process should be elevated
   $newProcess.Verb = "runas";
   # Start the new process
   [System.Diagnostics.Process]::Start($newProcess);
   # Exit from the current, unelevated, process
   exit
   }
# Run your code that needs to be elevated here
Install-PackageProvider NuGet -Force
Set-PSRepository PSGallery -InstallationPolicy Trusted
Install-Module -name PSWindowsUpdate -Confirm:$false
Import-Module PSWindowsUpdate
Hide-Windowsupdate -KBArticleID KB5034441 -Confirm:$false