Editing Tips

With the update editor you can:

  • Edit an update’s information. For example, you can change an update’s title, description, severity, etc.
  • Add command line options when relevant.
  • Edit the Is Installed and the Is Installable rules.
  • Change which CPU architectures and operating system languages will be patched
  • Edit the list of superseded updates
  • Add pre-install and post-install commands. These commands can invoke other scripts, command files, or executables that you provide and which will become part of the update.

The editor does not allow you to:

  • Create completely new updates
  • Replace the original binary update
  • Modify the vendor, product, bulletin, KB article, CVE IDs, or IAVA IDs
  • Make arbitrary changes to the software distribution package XML

Identifying Edited Updates

When you publish an edited update, the title and description of the update are automatically altered to indicate that changes were made. If only the metadata is changed, the term (Edited) is appended to the title. If a custom install script was added, the term (Custom) is appended to the title. In either case the following items are appended to the description: (Edited) <timestamp> <user name of editor>.

Saving Your Work

You can save your work at any point in the editing process. Periodically saving your changes is considered a good practice. You should save your work if you need to exit the update editor before finishing your edits or if you want to perform a review before publishing the changes.

To save your changes, click the Save icon () and then specify a file name and a location to save the edited file. Your changes are reviewed by the program and checked for errors. You will not be able to save the file if any errors are found.

If you have exited the editor and want to retrieve your changes, select the correct update, restart the editor and then click the Open icon (). Locate the correct saved file, click Open and the edited version of the update will be loaded into the editor. An error will occur if you accidentally attempt to load an edited version of a different update.