Every month there is another bunch of updates (also called hotfixes) for Windows. After a few months, they pile up to quite a collection. If you have to reinstall Windows or for some other reason you would like know which ones have been previously installed on your computer, a list of the hotfixes on your PC might be handy.
Some programs, such as Belarc Advisor, will include a list of updates in an overall analysis of what is on your computer. This type of comprehensive survey of your computer’s contents is worthwhile but there is also an easier way to get a list of Windows updates. This method takes advantage of the command line and requires no installation of additional software. Open the command prompt and enter this command:
wmic qfe list brief /format:htable > "%USERPROFILE%\hotfix.html"
This produces a nicely formatted list in an HTML file named hotfix.html that gets placed in the User folder. You can, of course, change the destination to some other convenient location. If there are any spaces in the name of a folder that you choose, don’t forget to wrap the destination name in quotes, as is done in the commands given in this tip.
If you would rather have a text file, the command would be:
wmic qfe list brief /format:texttablewsys > "%USERPROFILE%\hotfix.txt"
If you prefer not to copy and paste a command into a command prompt, there is a little batch file available at this link. It will produce the HTML file mentioned above.
And there it is. Now you have an easy way to keep track of those constant updates.
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This tips section is maintained by Vic Laurie. Vic runs several websites with Windows how-to's and tutorials, including a computer education website and a site for learning about the command line.
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Comments
I typed cmd in the Search field, right clicked on the cmd command, chose run as administrator, entered this copied and pasted command: wmic qfe list brief /format:htable > "%USERPROFILE%\hotfix.html and presto, looked in my user folder and there is was, a nice HTML formatted list in chronological order of KB number from top to bottom, which made my task of finding if a few KB updates I was looking for had been installed, which they were not listed, thank god. Makes it easy to find when they are listed by number order from top to bottom. Thank you for your tip and easy use of a nice useful command line prompt. :-))) I did try the text version listed in your article first, but was not to my liking and not as useful as the HTML one. Sure made it easy to look for those 12 KBxxxxxxxxx updates to see if they were installed. Reason for wanting to look, was because I printed out an article "How to stop Windows 10 install and get my Windows 7 updates" and they said to remove 12 Windows Updates if they were installed. Too easy to make an error looking in Windows Installed Updates and they are not in numerical order there like they are in this HTML command. I am very happy with your post on this matter.
Hi,
This is awesome, is there any way to filter by date, something like, for example, |Select-String -Pattern ‘8\/12\/2016' would do, but directly in the command?