Updating guest OS

[WayneM2]

I'm running Windows XP as guest OS. I see that MIcrosoft has issued an emergency, post-support period, update:

WannaCrypt ransomware: Microsoft issues emergency patch for Windows XP | ZDNet

Can I just do the standard procedure of running Windows Update on the guest OS, or is that not possible, or is it more complicated than that?

Thanks for help/advice. 🙂

[bluefirestorm]

The Microsoft blog mentioned in the ZDNet article

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/msrc/2017/05/12/customer-guidance-for-wannacrypt-attacks/

provides a link to download for specific OS versions.

http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4012598

It took a while for that link to open up and failed to open for a few tries. Could be very busy.

It is probably best to download from that link (EDIT: using a machine/VM that has the MS17-010, March 2017 patches) and then copy over to the guest VM to install rather than risk going online and getting hit.

[WayneM2]

I may not have been clear about the rather basic nature of my question, sorry for that.

I have never had the need or occasion to update the Windows XP operating system of my guest OS. I'm not sure about the procedure, or even if it will work without some sort of Microsoft Windows license key requirement or other surprise. I don't what to run an update and find that I've just bricked my guest OS.

Does Windows Update work normally on a guest OS? Can I just run the update (or download the file for update), and all should go smoothly? ...

[bluefirestorm]

Yes, if the guest OS is still within scope of support by Microsoft (such as Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8.1, etc), Windows Update works fine from a VM.

I would think the Windows Update won't work for the unsupported OS like Windows XP. Hence the message from Microsoft to download from a specific link in this particular instance that they came out with a patch for unsupported Windows versions. I suppose any OS that is out-of-support would not work with Windows Update; out-of-support implies infrastructure and resources won't be allocated like that done for supported ones like Windows 10.

[RDPetruska]

You should be able to do so without any problem, just like it was a physical machine.  The good thing about it being virtual, is you can back it up before you try to update it... and if the update really screws up the guest, you can delete that copy and restore from your backup file very quickly.  Personally, I just make zip archives of my VMs - change the date in the filename so I know what/when the "checkpoint" backups were.

[WayneM2]

Got it. Thanks bluefirestorm and RDPetruska.

"Windows Update" may not be working for the the update, but I can use the download link to make that happen.

I'll backup the VM before and give it a try. 🙂