Patch Tuesday Improvement

[Esben_D]

Hey,

A few years ago I tried to improve the patch Tuesday report to make it less error prone and also to prevent it from marking devices as "out-of-date" when they get a new update next month.

The main issues I ran in were

1. Patch numbers are not consistent and cannot be used to determine which patch is the latest
2. Windows build numbers are only scannable from Server 2016 (or Windows 10) onward (this is a Windows issue).

Luckily, since time has passed and older operating systems have gone end-of-life. This is becoming less of an issue. The only remaining supported OS with no build number info is Server 2012.

So with that, I have created a new version of Patch Tuesday, that uses the old method for Server 2012, but the new method for all the rest. The new method is simply using the build number of the operating system to check whether it is up-to-date. Meaning that if you were to use it after Patch Tuesday August, the report should still be accurate (aside from Server 2012).

Before I use this to send it to everyone, please give it a try and let me know if you come across issues. I attached the code in a TXT file to this post.

[Dee]

Is there any way to have the "Install one of these updates" column in the next report please, as it would be helpful to know what KB update to install on devices for all those out of date, please?

[Esben_D]

Yeah, I'll add it back the upcoming month.

[Dee]

Is there any chance of a column with the out of date, so we can get a total of devices we need to update please? or a way we can filter the red or filter out the updated complete.

Also what determines that a device "might need a reboot" ?

Nice to see the reports refreshed, thanks.

[Bayf]

Liking the changes, I wonder if I could make a request.  When we run the report, we often filter by Patched and Unpatched.  historically we can just type "out" in the filter field.   Can you add a column, which is basically good/bad?

[Esben_D]

The same patch status column is still there. Can't you do the same with the current version?

[Dee]

Is there any chance this column can be included permanently in the new report please, as I'm sure others will use this too and it is a pain to re-create the report every month.. 

[Esben_D]

Can you explain exactly what you want? and how the column you need differs from the current "Patch status" column. I currently don't really understand the request.

[Dee]

Also if we wanted to see how many devices are NOT patched, how would we do this in the new report? (see previous comment)

[Dee]

Basically a way to give a total of all "out of date" devices only that need patching, so we can download the report and start working on patching them.

In the last report we could use the "Patch Status" column and filter by "Out of date". this would then show all devices that were not patched and needed working on.

There does not seem to be a way to filter\show all out of date patches only with the new report.