Setting up Windows product patching support

For an overview of the benefits and requirements of this functionality, see Windows patching support of all products in the Microsoft patch catalog.

The following steps instruct how to get started with the new Windows All Products Support functionality:

• Step 1 – Selecting Microsoft products from the SA Client
• Step 2 – Import Windows Patches for Additional Products
• Step 3 – Scan and Remediate Servers

Step 1 – Selecting Microsoft products from the SA Client

To import product-specific patches, select the pertinent MS products:

1. Navigate to the Administration > Patch Settings.

2. Select Patch Products from the list of Windows Patch Download settings.

3. Click Edit to open the Edit Patch Products window.

   

Available products are on the left and selected products are on the right.

4. To populate the list of available products, click one of the Update action buttons:

   Update Products from Vendor…: Use this option to update the list of products directly from the vendor site. The vendor site URL is the default URL for the database on the Microsoft web site.

   Update Products from File…: Use this option to update the list of products from the wsusscn2.cab file on your local machine.

   1. Updating Product List from Vendor

      The new Updating Product List from Vendor window allows you to update the available products list directly from the vendor’s web site.

      

      • URL: The location of the patch database with the product list on the vendor’s web site. This value is auto-populated based on your system implementation settings, but it can be modified.

      • Revert to Vendor Default: If you modify the URL, you can select this button to revert to the default URL for the vendor’s patch database defined in your system implementation settings.
      • Update: Updates the Microsoft Products List in SA based on the vendor’s patch database at the specified URL.

   2. Updating Product List from File

      The new Updating Product List from File window allows you to update the available products list from a file on your local machine. This method is useful for air-gapped environments, where the managed servers do not have internet access.

      

      • Filename: Navigate to the location of the Microsoft Offline Catalog (wsusscn2.cab) file on your local machine.
      • File of Type: Accept the default, Microsoft Patch Database File (*.cab).
      • Update: Updates the Microsoft Products List in SA based on the selected file.As the update is taking place, you can click Run in Background to minimize the Update window.

5. After the list is updated, modify the selected products list as needed for your environment:

   

   • To add a product: select it from the list of available products in the left-side pane, and click + >> to move it to the selected products list on the right.
   • To remove a product: select it from the list of selected products in the right-side pane and click <<- to move it to the available products list on the left.

6. Click OK to save your selection.

The next time you run import Windows patches, patches for the selected products will be included in the download.

Step 2 – Import Windows Patches for Additional Products

After you have specified the Windows products to include, you can run the patch import.

To import windows patches:

1. Navigate to the Administration > Patch Settings.
2. Select Patch Database from the list of Windows Patch Download settings.

3. Import the patch database by clicking one of the action buttons:

   • Import from File…: Use this option to import the Windows patch metadata for the selected products from the wsusscn2.cab file on your local machine.

   • Import from Vendor…: Use this option to import the Windows patch metadata for the selected products directly from the vendor site. The vendor site URL is the default URL for the database on the Microsoft web site.

     

4. When the import is complete, go to the SA Windows Patch Library to verify that the patches for the selected products were uploaded:

5. Navigate to Library > By Type > Patches > Windows.

6. Select one of the Windows operating systems to see the patches for products on that OS.

   To search for a product patch, select Description as the search value and enter the name of the product, such as Office 2003, in the text box.

   

   The list will filter the patches to only display those that match the search criteria.

Step 3 – Scan and Remediate Servers

After importing all the patches for all the desired Windows products, run a compliance scan and remediate any necessary servers according to the scan results.

1. Scan a Windows server with the VPRR attached for patch compliance.
2. From Devices, select the Windows server you wish to scan.

3. Select Actions > Scan > Patch Compliance.

   The scan results will indicate if you need to remediate the server to apply any product-specific patches.

4. Remediate the recommended patches as you normally would. See Remediating Patch Policies.