M100606: Staging managed device upgrades while upgrading to ManageSoft Security Patch Management 7.1

This article describes how to upgrade to ManageSoft Security Patch Management 7.1 (feature pack) if you need to maintain some managed devices on an earlier release of ManageSoft.

ManageSoft Security Patch Management 7.1 introduces support for MBSA 1.2. (Earlier versions of ManageSoft Security Patch Management use MBSA 1.1.) If you follow the upgrade process documented in the release notes for ManageSoft Security Patch Management 7.1, all managed devices will be updated to ManageSoft 7.1, and will use MBSA 1.2. This occurs because policy is updated at once with MBSA 1.2, the new ManageSoft Security Patch Management plugin DLL, and the updated "Security Patch Settings" package.

If you need to maintain some managed devices on a release of ManageSoft earlier than 7.1, follow the process below to ensure that these managed devices do not operate with the MBSA 1.2 version of mssecure.xml. If this happens, the security compliance logs (.msa files) that are uploaded by these managed devices will not be resolved on the warehouse.

Procedure

Complete these steps:

1. Create a package containing the MBSA 1.1 version of mssecure.xml.
   Call it something descriptive like "Old Security Patch Settings".
2. Update policies so that all managed devices use this new package rather than "Security Patch Settings".
3. Perform the upgrade to ManageSoft Security Patch Management 7.1 as described in the release notes. The first time security bulletins are refreshed, the "Security Patch Settings" package will automatically be updated with an MBSA 1.2 mssecure.xml file. (This is OK, because all managed devices are currently using "Old Security Patch Settings".)
4. For each managed device that is upgraded to ManageSoft 7.1, update policy to ensure that:
1. The MBSA 1.1 version of mssecure.xml is replaced by the MBSA 1.2 version.
2. The new package containing the ManageSoft Security Patch Management plugin DLL is installed.
3. "Old Security Patch Settings" is replaced by "Security Patch Settings".

Additional Information