As demonstrated @TechEd in Australia and New Zealand our latest free tool is the Software Update Management Tool. The sole purpose of the tool is to automate the creation of software update deployments.

The benefits of using the tool are:

  • All deployments will be using the same naming standard. the naming standard is WRK/SRV + Year + Value of Month WRK 2013 09. The names are automatically generated using the actual month.
  • You save time by automating the process.
  • You eliminate errors by automating the process.
  • All deployments are created as disabled deployments. This gives you complete control over the deployment process.

The requirements:

  • All templates must begin with either “WRK or “SRV”
  • You must copy the “2853886b-cce5-4ed4-af43-df69efb2e7d8” folder to .\AdminConsole\XmlStorage\Extensions\Actions on a computer that has the ConfigMgr administrator console installed.

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  • You must copy the folder “Coretech Right Click Tools” to C:\Program Files (x86)\Coretech\ on the same computer 

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  • Have an existing Software Update group either created manually or by the Automatic Deployment Rule

How it works

In this example I have created Software Update templates for my server and desktop deployments and copied the files/folders as explained in the requirements section.

  1. Navigate to an existing Software Update Group.
  2. In the Ribbon click, Coretech Update Manager, Create Deployment based in SUP Template. 

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  3. From the list of deployment templates, select the templates and click Add. Templates with a required deployment must be configured with a deadline time or As Soon As Possible. If the template is configured with an available deployment then it will be greyed out and you will not be able to select the Deadline Time.

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  4. When ready, click Create and relax for a few minutes while the tool is doing your work.
  5. Once the deployments are created, just click Close in the Coretech Update Manager.

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  6. Right click the deployment and select Enable to start patching the environment.

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Happy patching, kudos for this tool goes to Kaido Järvemets who is the mastermind behind the PowerShell code.