What does the Manual Download Column mean in Patch Management Reports

Products

• Patch Management Solution

Issue/Introduction

When running the compliance reports for Patch Management, particularly the Software Bulletin Details report, you notice a Manual Download column.  What exactly is this column?

 

Resolution

Some updates required for remediation of vulnerabilities known to Symantec Patch Management solution cannot be downloaded automatically from the corresponding software vendors’ web sites.  Typical examples:

• Updates that require EULA acceptance for download
• Updates that require login using registered user account
• Updates that require subscription to specific service (for example, Windows 10 feature
• updates available through Microsoft MSDN or Enterprise Licensing)
• Updates that are replaced with newer versions by vendor (for example, Google Chrome)

Earlier versions of Patch Management solution were not able to support such updates and they were filtered out from the datafeed (with few exceptions for Windows 10 feature updates and Oracle Java – both requiring manual work around to get them distributed).  With automated support for manually downloaded updates (MDU) added in ITMS 8.6 RU3 they will
not be filtered out from data feed anymore but still hidden for the earlier versions of Patch Management solution.

 

It's discussed a little more here Downloading and Distributing Software Updates