Which is correct for displaying installed updates: WMIC or Systeminfo?

Question

Am applying a "critical" Microsoft patch (KB4499164) to a number of remote Windows 7 (32-bit) PCs. My ONLY option to access these PCs is via SSH and SFTP.

I used a batch script to apply this patch overnight to nine systems as a pilot. Three of the PCs list the patch when I use either the wmic qfe command or the systeminfo command. On the remaining PCs, the wmic qfe command shows the patch as installed, but the systeminfo command does NOT list the patch.

Which one is correct? How do I know for sure if the patch applied?

Answer 1

The command WMIC qfe list will return correct results. The systeminfo command will not. My notes indicate it's limited to displaying 246 hotfixes (which are not the same as updates), but I can't find a source for that. This Microsoft KB support article does say:

When using SystemInfo.exe in Windows Server 2003 to display a list of installed hotfixes, some hotfixes may not be listed if over 200 are installed....There is a buffer size limitation that does not allow all system update hotfixes to be displayed.

However it only mentions Server 2003.

Bottom line, use the WMIC command to get a complete list of installed updates.