System Center Updates Publisher (SCUP) September 2017 Preview 2 is available

Microsoft has released SCUP 2017 preview 2 update with enhanced update catalog to provide better experience for users in consuming large catalog updates. While old catalog formats are still supported, catalog providers will need to add information to their existing catalogues to take advantage of these improvements that exist in this preview 2 update. This preview 2 update contains the following improvements:

• Indexing for quicker imports of previously imported catalogs – Catalog producers can now index their catalogs. This will allow users to import large catalogs containing few new updates more quickly.
• Inclusion of signing certificates within updates catalogs – Catalog producers can now include signing certificates with their updates catalogs. This enables users to add the certificates to the trusted publishers list during import so that approval prompts will not block publish operations.
• Signature Timestamp – Updates published to a WSUS server will by default have the signature time-stamped. Note, this functionality requires internet access. If you have upgraded from preview 1 this will not be automatically enabled.  To enable or disable the signature timestamp or configure the timestamp server that is used see the Advanced page under Options.

In this post ,we will see how to

1. Download the SCUP Preview here.

2. Run UpdatesPublisher.msi on a computer that meets the prerequisites.

3. Configure the options for SCUP.

4. Start using the features of SCUP.

5. More information about SCUP ,refer https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/sum/tools/updates-publisher

Download the SCUP Preview from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55543 ,installer size is around 5MB

Run the downloaded file on supported platform OS ,in this case, i will run the installer on my SCCM server in my lab.My lab server do not have any SCUP .since this is still in preview,do not install in production environment.

Before you run the SCUP tool ,make sure you meet the prerequisites listed below.

The following are required on the computer that runs Updates Publisher.+

• 64-bit operating system: The computer where you install Updates Publisher must run a 64-bit operating system.
• WSUS 4.0 or later:
  • On Windows Server, install the default Administration Console to meet this requirement.
  • For Windows 10 and Windows 8.1, install the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) for Windows operating systems. This installs the necessary support to use Updates Publisher (API and PowerShell cmdlets, and User Interface Management Console).
• Permissions:
  • Installation: Local admin
  • Most operations: local user
  • Publishing, or operations that involve WSUS: Member of WSUS Administrators group on the WSUS Server.

Installation is straight forward.

Click next,next,finish

On the device that you installed preview, search for Update publisher (Preview)

.

Accept the license terms ,let it do some pre checks before the console made available to you.

Version of this SCUP 2017 Preview 2 is : 6.0.219.0

If you are using SCUP 2011 ,you now have 2 new features added in preview release with updates and logging.

Logging:

In advance tab ,you can now change the database file instead of leaving it in user profile and Signature Timestamp URL is enabled by default.

Timestamp: When enabled, a timestamp is added to updates you sign that identifies when it was signed. An update that was signed while a certificate was valid can be used after that signing certificate expires. By default, software updates cannot be deployed after their signing certificate expires.

In preview release, all the nodes are added with workspace like updates workspace,publications workspace,rules workspace and catalos workspace.

From the default catalog i can see only acrobat and reader but no flash player along with dell,HP,Fujitsu . For Adobe flash player ,you need to add the scup catalog manually. http://fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/distribution/win/AdobeFlashPlayerCatalog_SCUP.cab

SCUP log that track the information about importing catalogs, publish and download of updates is changed from SCUP.log to updatepublisher.log which still store in user profile (%appdata%)

when you try to import download catalog file(cab) ,it will prompt you with few options like approve,always approve and decline.

Once the catalog is approved (always) ,you will not see any prompts during the publish of updates (content download) .This is really helpful if you are trying to publish lot of updates and have a coffee while it download the content and publish the info to WSUS server

In the older version,when you try to publish the updates ,it prompt to approve the content which is troublesome if you have multiple updates published at one go.

More to test on this ,Stay tuned until further updates.