compare windows server for patch/update/hotfix installs

Question

Are there any tools that can be used to connect to windows 2008 servers, and get a comparison of the installed patches/updates on the servers, showing what is installed on one and not on the other?

This is to help isolate an issue we are seeing on a specific windows server, in a load balanced setup. There is a certain performance/locking issue, which is mitigated whenever one of the servers is disabled.

Please share, if you have any suggestions.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You can query the Win32_QuickFixEngineering WMI class to get a list of hotfixes installed. Dump the results to an XML file and then use a diff tool (WinMerge, P4Merge, Beyond Compare, etc...).