Import/Export list of updates to apply

[chrisepp]

Is it possible to take a staging environment, check for updates to be applied, select from that list updates to be applied specifically, then save that list to import later into production to deploy that same list of updates that have been tested in a development environment?

[doug]

Well I mean if you identify certain updates (either by KB number or by update title) in your staging environment that you are going to approve for installation in your production environment, you can simply use ‘Actions > Windows Updates > Filter > Include specific updates (textual)’ and then just paste your list right there.

[chrisepp]

Yes, but that is rather manual. If you could export the generated list of consolodated updates needed, and then import that list into the filter that would make that very easy, and even easy to show in change control the exact list of updates that were applied. I’m looking for something more like that, instead of manually typing in kb’s to do.

[doug]

There really isn’t anything more manual actually. If you identify updates in your staging setup that you have applied to your “filter”, you can just go to the ‘Download/install filter’ column in BP and copy that list from there. Then paste that list into the filter in the production environment. There isn’t a formal export/import option for this list because it’s applicable on a per-machine basis not globally, and you won’t have the same machines in the staging environment as the production environment. So you’re talking about taking the filter list from one machine, and applying it to another machine. So this isn’t something that we would like turn into an export/import type of thing because there isn’t really anything to export or import since it’s all specific to individual targets. You could, if you want, just take the .bps file from the staging environment and load it in the production environment. Then you have all of your filters that you have applied to each row in the staging environment right there. You can then select a row in that staging grid which has been loaded into the production instance of BP, and launch Actions > Windows Updates > Filter > Include specific updates (textual) with that row selected. You’ll then have the filter list populated in the GUI, and you can simply now select a different row (or group of rows for target machines in your production environment) and apply/save the filter there.

[doug]

With regard to the exact list of updates that have been applied… the list of updates that are included in a filter are not necessarily the updates that will be applied when you do an “install” operation because updates that are applied/installed have to be applicable to the machine in the first place. IF you apply a filter that includes KB123456 to a computer where KB123456 is not applicable, then KB123456 will never be applied to that computer. You can use the consolidated report of update history to report on the updates that you have actually applied/installed per-machine with BP. Additionally with regard to a consolidated report of available updates with filters applied, you can save that list from the staging environment simply by using the ‘Export’ menu item in the top left corner of the window that you see when you use the ‘consolidated report of available updates with filters applied’ action. You can export the list right there… you just cant import it into a different group of computers in your production environment because that list is specific to the computers where it was applied. If you import it in production it won’t apply to any of the machines there because they are different machine. Hence why it’s a “manual” operation to determine which updates you want to apply to a filter for a whole different group of computers. If the list of updates in staging is essentially the same as production, then you can just copy and paste the list to apply to a new computer (or use the method described in my previous posting above whereby you just launch the .bps file for staging in your production instance of BP. Then you can “transfer” the filter from one row to another by highlighting a row, opening the BP filter window, then highlight the rows in production that you want to apply it to, and click ‘Save’)

[chrisepp]

There is a tutorial video on the site that shows a filter list of what to include to deploy that you could add to. Looks like that option does not exist in the menu any more. So if you had a list of specific updates you wanted to install only, you could apply that list to all targets you wanted to and it would only deploy updates from that list if applicable. New to this, just looking at all the options. I would have though there would be the possibility of a global filter to allow only a specific list of updates to be available to machines.

[chrisepp]

I’m trying to figure out what the purpose of being save and open the consolidated list of URLs for available updates. It seems like the intent there is what I am looking for. So in that list, you don’t see which machines they are applied to, just a list of all updates generated. You can delete rows from that to remove them. I just want to apply that list of updates created there as a filter to whatever machines I want to deploy that list to (of course only what is applicable).

[doug]

The filter list that you said you saw in a video still exists. It’s the same as what I described previously: ‘Actions > Windows Updates > Filter > Include specific updates (textual)’.

The URL list is not what you are looking for. That’s for cached mode and is for downloading the updates from Microsoft when your machines are in an offline environment ( https://batchpatch.com/cached-mode-and-offline-updates )

Anyway, I think you might be overthinking this whole process. All you need to do is identify the updates in your staging environment that you want to apply to your production environment. Then just make a list of those KBs. You can even just copy them using CTRL-C directly from the KB column from the ‘Consolidated report of available updates (with filters applied)’. Then paste that list of KBs into ‘Actions > Windows Updates > Filter > Include specific updates (textual)’ for your production environment.

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