Speed up SharePoint Update Installation

Installing Updates for SharePoint 2013 will take a long time, if you don’t disable some services prior starting the update process by executing the hotfix exe file. To simplify the installation, and speeding it up, you can use a PowerShell script to stop the necessary services, and start the update.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/russmax/archive/2013/04/01/why-sharepoint-2013-cumulative-update-takes-5-hours-to-install.aspx

You need to copy the code, and save it as e.g. Install_SharePoint_Update.ps1 in the same folder as the exe file. Start the script from the “SharePoint Management Shell”. It will take care of the services for you.

Btw: You can start the script with PowerShell on a remote path. No need to copy the update file to your SharePoint Servers 🙂