An updated version of Russ Maxwell's "5 hour" SharePoint Patch Script supporting SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint 2016. Original created for SharePoint 2013 by Russ Maxwell, this script has been updated with a few new features:

• Support for SharePoint 2016 and SharePoint 2013 in the same script
• Support for multiple patch files for both platforms
• Support for pausing/stopping multiple SharePoint Search Service Applications
• It's now a module!

Upcoming features include:

• Disable resuming of Search (this would be useful in patching multiple SharePoint servers)
• Better information on what the script is doing

Usage:

Import-Module .\SharePointPatchScript.psm1

• You can also drop the psm1 file in your modules directory, by default it is located at C:\Users\<username>\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules

Example:

Install-SPPatch -Path C:\Patches -Pause -SilentInstall

Reference:

• -Path is an absolute path to the folder location of the patches
• -SilentInstall includes the arguments /passive /quiet. This prevents any of the patch UI from appearing (useful to patch as quickly as possible without user intervention)
• -Pause pauses the Search Service Application(s) prior to stopping the Search Services.
• -Stop simply stops the Search Services without pausing the Search Service Application.

-Pause and -Stop are mutually exclusive.

Russ Maxwell's original script is available at https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/russmax/2013/04/01/why-sharepoint-2013-cumulative-update-takes-5-hours-to-install/.