hello. i recently installed a software update point role in sccm 2012 r2 and synchronized about 419 updates. none of them are reported to be downloaded except the office 2013 service pack 1 update for which i specifically created a deployment package. no update groups have been created.

in light of this i find it strange that under "all software updates" the column that reads "required" and "installed" contains numbers in them (2 in my case) as if i have machines that are already pulling and installing these updates? i have made no deployments to any collections? this freaked me out so i went and turned off the section on the client settings package that reads "enable software updates on clients" (under software updates category).

i'm worried that i have read the ms information incorrectly somewhere, since i was under the impression that i have to deploy updates first before they will install?

firstly, does the software updates section in client settings package turn off the ability of clients to do windows updates or is it for something else? secondly, could this have been a reference machine i was building using mdt where i specifically pointed to the update server in the customsettings.ini file? (i did this after the catalogue synched for the first time). was trying to get the mdt build to pull updates from the sccm sup instead of the internet, but later found out that i first have to download the updates.

any ideas?

i'm worried that i have read the ms information incorrectly somewhere, since i was under the impression that i have to deploy updates first before they will install?

That's true, but it might be possible that the updates were installed manually on those clients. 
ConfigMgr will only install updates if there's a deployment of a software update group.

ok thanks. i don't have any deployments of software update groups. As i said before i went to administration and then the client settings node. there i right-clicked on the default client settings and changed the option to "no" under "enable software updates on clients". i did this just to be on the safe side until i know how i want to proceed. is this a safe measure to take?

Firstly, here are some links about the Client Settings in SCCM:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/gg682109.aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/gg682067.aspx

Second, to answer your questions...

1. Enable Software Updates On Clients: 

Use this setting to enable software updates on Configuration Manager clients. If you clear this setting, Configuration Manager removes existing deployment policies from client. When you re-enable this setting, the client downloads the current deployment policy.

When you clear this setting, NAP and compliance settings policies that rely on the software updates device setting will no longer function.

2. As for the SCCM console showing that an update is installed; it is telling you that 'X' number of systems already have this update (and therefore it is not needed on those systems). Like was mentioned, this could have been installed manually, or from some other means. 

SCCM does not "automatically" install anything unless you tell it to. 

It can also be set to 'yes' as ConfigMgr does not do anything automatically (unless an admin tells it to do so; but it won't happen out of the box).

I answered these in your other thread:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/b02af11d-a08f-4227-bda6-47aa3516a22c/folders-for-software-update-deployment-packages?forum=configmanagersecurity#3f1ef18a-1669-4845-b3f0-7e151687c5d5

thanks for all the replies. what you're saying makes sense since these machines were manually patched from directly from microsoft online before the image was created.