Solved Printing Update History

I can see my update history. But how do I print it out ? I have a large number of Failed updates and I like to look more closely.
Stuart

sagrant said:

I can see my update history. But how do I print it out ? I have a large number of Failed updates and I like to look more closely.
Stuart

Click to expand...

I use Windows 7 at work and Windows 8.1 at home. I am having the same problem on my work computer so this answer applies to Windows 7 Enterprise with Service Pack 1 installed. I suspect it applies to Windows 8.1 as well but I can not promise that it will.

Suggestion One:
Do screen prints (or use the snipping tool that comes in Windows, same concept.)

Suggestion Two:
Use freeware tool Sysexporter, links and instructions found here. I read the system requirements at their site and it does support Windows 8 and 8.1.

I do not like installing a freeware tool on my computer but I needed a solution that would allow me to sort, copy, paste, and otherwise use the data. If you are willing to take the security risk of using Sysexporter, which I consider to be fairly low, then that is the better solution. It does not require an install. If you copy as tab delimited it was paste into Excel or other programs nicely parsed for you.

I am sorry that I have not been able to find a way to accomplish this in Windows without executing another program. Having said that, the solution is very easy if you do decide to go that route.

Printing Upgrade History

Ross
Thank you very much for your excellent suggestions. I did not get anywhere with attempts with Screen Print and snipping so downloaded Sysexporter. I have downloaded other programs from Nirsoft and I think think that they are quite a reliable firm. I had quite a lot of difficulty getting it to work, mainly I think because Microsoft provide three or four different ways of downloading an update history. I started with the one you get from Settings, Change PC Settings, Update and Recovery, Update History. Couldn't get it to work at all. finally at the third attempt over Control Panel, I made it and now have a 24 page printout !
I took a while to answer because this has been one of these days! I live in Switzerland and most of my software is in English but I have a Swiss German keyboard because I also write quite a bit in German and need all the umlauts and other special characters. I had not changed anything but this morning suddenly found my keyboard layout had changed to English so every time I hit "y" I got " z" and most of the punctuation keys were different. You might think changing the Keyboard layout might be simple. Well it isn't although I found how to do it in the end. Then I found my printer settings had changed and I could no longer print two-sided ! Finally think I am getting back to normal.
Thanks again for your help.
Stuart

I downloaded the program too. I was trying to copy my credentials. I never could get it to work. When I tried to export it to Excel, all I got was error messages.

Clint said:

I downloaded the program too. I was trying to copy my credentials. I never could get it to work. When I tried to export it to Excel, all I got was error messages.

Click to expand...

Clint, try going to the Admin Command Prompt window and typing:

Cmdkey /list > credential.txt

You can use any filename you would like. My file went to my "c:\users\Ross" folder. Where "Ross" is the name of the account I was signed in on when I sent the text file. If your file does not show up just make sure you know what you called it and search your C drive.

I do not know what should be in my credential file so I do not know if that will have the information you need but it is worth a try.

sagrant,
A couple of things that might help, based on mistakes I made when following the directions on the linked article.

Be sure to select "ListView" from the "Type" column. (That was in the instructions but I did not notice it at first.)

Once you see the information in the bottom window you will notice that the "Date Installed" column has question marks in it. That caused problems for me but I just worked around it by using a text editor. I just noticed that SysExporter has an "Options/Remove Question Mark Characters" feature. (Dang I wish I would have found that earlier.) All I had to do after selecting that option was cut and paste directly into Excel and everything worked perfectly.

Have a great day,

Ross