How to Manage Updates

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Installing and updating software is an important and complicated task, but not all the software your business uses is from Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Update helps you update Microsoft software only. To ensure that all software and hardware is up-to-date in your organization, you can use System Center Essentials 2007 to deploy arbitrary software packages from any vendor, including updates. In addition, for a select set of software vendors who partner with Microsoft, you can use Essentials 2007 to import a catalog of available updates to simplify your deployment tasks.

Deploying an update for an arbitrary non-Microsoft software package is similar to the process for Microsoft updates, except that you must first create the update package before approving the update for deployment to selected computer groups.

Use the following procedures to manage non-Microsoft updates. For more information about creating an update package for an arbitrary software product, see How to Create an Update Package.

How to import an update catalog from a Microsoft partner

  1. In the Essentials 2007 console, click Updates.

  2. In the Actions pane, click Import Updates from partner catalogs.

  3. On the Select Product Catalog page of the Update Catalog Import Wizard, select one of the Microsoft-verified partners, or supply the URL of a catalog location.

  4. On the Review Update Catalog Contents page, ensure that the updates you want imported are listed on the Importable packages tab. The packages listed in the Non-importable packages tab are either:

    • Already imported (indicated by a status of No Changes)

    • Packaged with XML that the installed version of Essentials 2007 cannot read or cannot process (indicated by a status of Incompatible XML)

    • Require a dependency on another software installation that has not been or cannot be completed (indicated by a status of Dependency Failed)

  5. Click Import to import the catalog of updates from the vendor that you selected, and then close the wizard.

  6. In the Updates pane, click All Updates.

  7. Click Search to filter the software vendor name to locate the updates.

  8. View the properties for those updates and ensure the names, descriptions, and file sizes are correct (non-blank, non-zero).

See Also

Tasks

How to Approve an Update for Deployment
How to Configure Updates for Automatic Approval