Product: Monitoring & Management
We are pleased to announce the release of version 2.6 of the PME (Patch Management Engine). This version also includes an update for the patch engine of third-party software.
This version is an important milestone. In the future, it will be possible to automatically install out-of-the-box (OOB) patches. You can learn more about this in the following text.
New patches from Band C + Out-of-Band Channels (OOB Channels)
For those unfamiliar with the concept of tape patching, please refer to the following link: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/windows-quality-updates-primer/ba-p/2569385
Out-of-band updates caused quite a stir last year, as Microsoft released them on at least two occasions for major problems, so that almost everyone in IT tried to fix devices through scripting or manual tasks.
We are pleased to announce that, following consultation with Microsoft, we can now offer this service automatically. When Microsoft releases another out-of-the-box (OOB) patch, your regular patch detection scans should identify it, significantly reducing the effort required to resolve these issues should they occur.
Note: Even though we offer this feature, Microsoft still needs to provide the patch, which in some cases may be rolled out gradually over a period of 24-48 hours.
And there's more:
The following improvements have also been added:
- The timeout for downloading third-party patches has been increased from 10 to 20 minutes.
- OS architecture scanning added to enable support for Microsoft Edge within third-party patches.
- Improved logic to support the detection of Windows 10 updates and offer Windows 11 upgrades without requiring manual changes to the registry keys.
- UPDATE: It is now possible to use push installation of the Network Discovery agent on devices with manually edited operating system data.
- BUGFIX: Fixes an issue affecting Sophos during antivirus update checks (requires GA Agent 10.12.0 and higher).
- BUGFIX: A problem affecting the sorting of the "Agent Version" column in the northern section has been fixed.
- BUGFIX: Fixed a temporary issue where the ScriptRunner folder was removed after an agent update.
- BUGFIX: Fixed a temporary issue where ScriptRunner created a corrupted file after an agent update.
New engine versions
Here you will find an overview of the current version number by application:
Application
PME
MSP platform
PME Diagnosis
PME Third Party Patch
Version number
2.6.0.5218
2.6.0.5060
2.6.0.5032
2.6.0.5050
New applications
The following applications have been newly added to patch management:
- LibreOffice
- Pidgin
- Ultra VNC
As a reminder: Here you can find the always up-to-date list of all supported programs: https://documentation.n-able.com/remote-management/userguide/Content/pm_support_all.htm
What do I need to do now?
You don't need to do anything else. We'll take care of the necessary prerequisites (e.g., agent version) for you. The applications will be rolled out gradually over the coming weeks.