Staging Patches in Altiris
The basic configuration for staging patches in Altiris includes the following:
• Downloading MS Qchain
• PMImport.cab
• Stage/download the required Patches.
Downloading MS Qchain
The first part of basic configuration is to download MS Qchain.exe file from Microsoft site. As soon as you install the Patch Management Solution, automatically it will get downloaded from the site, otherwise you have to download this manually as shown below:
To do so open the Altiris web console and go to Configuration-> Server Settings-> Microsoft Settings-> right click on Download Qchain and click Start Download Task.
This will download the Qchain file. The PMImport.cab and Qchain will download to "C:\Program Files\Altiris\Patch Management\Downloads" and it also downloads related files.
PMImport.cab File
PMImport.cab file will contain the xml files which will have the complete details of Microsoft patches which are released to date and this is an important task to do before going ahead with Altiris Patch Management Solution.
Now we have to download the PMImport.cab file. To download the same expand Configure-> Server Settings-> Microsoft Settings-> right click on Microsoft Patch Management Import and select Start Download Task. And it will download the PMImport.cab file.
This will start the downloading of PMImport.cab file.
After downloading PMImport.cab file it will show the below wizard. Here click "Close" button.
Staging/Downloading Microsoft Updates
The PMImport.cab will provide us the details about the updates released by Microsoft to date but we have to download the required patches from the internet manually. To do so go to Tasks -> Manage Software Updates. This will open all the Software update bulletins released by Microsoft.
Now to download the patches we have to stage the bulletins. For this, select the bulletins which are not staged right click on selected bulletins and click on stage.
This will start the downloading patches. Here we can check the box "Close window then task is complete" and "Close" button.
After downloading patches it will show "Staged" column as "True" and the number of Downloaded is equal to number of Updates.
All the Patches will be downloaded to the following path, that is
C:\Program Files\Altiris\Patch Management\Packages\Updates
Vista or 64-bit OS's?
Don't forget the supplementary PMimport if you have any Vista or 64-bit operating systems in your environment that you want to patch. The normal PMimport won't contain patches for these.
We're on a pretty aggressive patch schedule and need to have patches applied to our 32,000 client environment within 10 days so every month we're kicking off the PMimport manually instead of depending on the default nightly download. If anyone else is in this same situation, I'd recommend subscribing to the "Patch Management 6.2" and "Patch Management 6.2 - Supplementary" subscriptions at http://asc.altiris.com as well as subscribe to AKB 21897 for the change log for the PMimports. Note: The KB isn't usually updated for several hours after the PMimports have been released.
Good write-up!
Automatic staging
Great instruction if your starting with PM, but when you are more advanced user you should look at instructions and script under http://www.symantec.com/community/download/2219/au... . That can help you save a lot of work, specially at the beginning.
Go to
Go to http://asc.altiris.com/servicecenter/subscription.... and sign up. This will ensure that you get notified when PMImport files are release each month. There will be two announcements. One will be the general release (32 bit systems) and one will be for supplemental (64 bit systems). When signing up for the notification make sure you select Patch Management 6.2 and Patch Management 6.2 – Supplementary subscriptions.
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