PME Engine Update Announcement

We’re pleased to announce that a new version of PME will be released within the next 24 hours. This update will be available exclusively to N-central assets set to use the Release Candidate (RC) version.

This release focuses on bug fixes and performance improvements, including:

Improved Patch History Handling

We’ve improved how PME queries historically installed patches. Previously, changes in system environments, such as OS build updates, could cause the WUA API to stop returning patch data, resulting in patches being incorrectly stuck in an “In-progress” or “Pending” state in reporting analytics. This update resolves that issue, ensuring more accurate patch status reporting.

Improved ESU Patch Detection

We’ve refined the logic for detecting and offering Extended Security Updates (ESUs), leading to more accurate patch availability and coverage.

Removal of Preview Patches Missing Supersedence

Preview patches that lack proper supersedence metadata have been removed from scan detections. These patches can interfere with our patch offering logic and are generally not recommended by Microsoft for production environments. PME will now exclude them, however we will consider their re-introduction once metadata has been improved.