We are delighted to announce a new Patch Management Engine is scheduled to be released today for both N-sight and N-central.

This build is mostly focusing on improvements and bug fixes.

Please note the following update which may have an effect on how you approve Feature Upgrades going forward

Feature Upgrades to now contain a product name

Historically Feature Upgrades have shown a blank name in the products field, however we now have the capability to get it from Microsoft to fill the field. It is likely those using N-central approval rules have targeted them with “Product Unknown”. Please see below the difference in detected patch metadata:

We have also added the following, instant value adds to the current build:

• Improved and added further support for Feature Upgrades of Windows 10 and Windows 11
  
  This is solving an issue where some devices were not offering the update due to both OS versions showing on the same devices. For example, Windows 10 devices were being offered both the Windows 10 and 11 FU by the Windows Update Engine.
• Adobe detection and install
  
  This is solving an issue where Adobe rebranded and changed registry keys thus significantly impacting our ability to detect the version that was installed on a device and stopping support for new versions
• Improved 32/64-bit device detection within Third Party Patch
• Improved Operating system version detection and support for third-party products.
  
  This is solving an issue where vendors like Google have deprecated their software for older OS versions. Java, Winzip, Itunes, and Adobe are all products that should be improved with this release.
• Improved uninstall commands for removal of installed patches.
  
  Some products have changed the required uninstall commands, MS Access being one of them. The uninstall commands have been updated to handle this
• Improved support for Server 2022 patches including Cumulative updates
  
  This solves an issue where Microsoft changed the releaseid that is used to detect updates from their channels. Normally they use 1 for each OS throughout its entire lifecycle however Server 2022 changed mid-release and therefore is updated like a new OS.
  
  
  
  We have also added the following improvements which are part of a larger body of work and require UI changes:
  
• Added functionality to choose only between Microsoft and Third Party, Microsoft only, or Third Party only
  
  This functionality allows you to use only certain parts of our patch feature, this allows compatibility with other products like Intune. Please note this is the engine side of the release. A UI release is still required for this functionality to work
• Added functionality to update, install and reinstall PME via a dashboard task
  
  This will allow you to try the RC build on selected devices, downgrade back to GA if needed and also reinstall PME should you feel it is not running well and needs a reinstall.
  
  
  Note: Along with this release we also need to update our featureupdates.xml and thirdpartypatch.xml. These will also be scheduled but may take up to 24 hours and a detection scan afterward to show the changes in the UI