Purchasing and Subscription Options

What's the Difference Between the Basic, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus Subscription?

The Basic Subscription subscription will only support publishing our catalog to WSUS from Microsoft SCUP. SCUP publishing doesn’t support automated publishing. You will need to manually import and publish third-party updates whenever there is a catalog update.

The Enterprise Subscription would support publishing our catalog automatically using our publishing service or the SCCM 1806+ third-party software update catalogs feature. Our publishing service does support extra customization options (see chart below) that wouldn’t be available when using the SCCM 1806+ in-console publishing feature.

The Enterprise Plus Subscription contains all the feature of Entperise, and also allows the creation of base installation packages in SCCM.

What's the Difference Between Our Publishing Service and SCCM 1806+ In-Console Publishing?

Most of our customers choose our publishing service over SCCM 1806+ in-console publishing since it offers better automation and helpful deployment options.

Here are a few essential items to consider in your decision:

SCCM 1806+ doesn't currently support full automation, because it only publishes updates using metadata-only. This video describes the manual full-content publishing step required when using SCCM publishing.
SCCM 1806+ only synchronizes the catalog automatically every 7 days. With the publishing service, you have total control over the catalog synchronization.
Our publishing service does offer some helpful options when performing updates such as running customer pre/post update scripts, skipping the update if the application is in use, deleting public desktop shortcuts, disable products self-update feature, creating standard installation logs, and republishing updates.

What are the Available Purchase and Payment Methods?

Purchasing Directly Online:

Bank Transfer - ACH
American Express
Discover
MasterCard
Visa

Purchasing Using Purchase Order:

Bank Transfer - ACH
American Express
Bank Check
Discover
MasterCard
Wire Transfer
Visa

Are Multi-Year Subscriptions Offered?

Starting on December 1, 2018, we now offer a 1, 2, and 3-year subscription options for our Enterprise Catalog subscription.

We only offer a 1-year subscription level for the Basic Catalog subscription.

Reseller On-boarding, Quotes, Terms and Discounts?

How to Become a Reseller:

All you need to do is request a quote and purchase on behalf of your client (a contract is not required).

On the quote request form, choose "Yes, I'm purchasing for another customer" for "Are You A Reseller Purchasing For Another Company?"

You must enter the end user company name, contact name, and contact email. We require the end user contact details for subscription delivery and expiration notifications.

You will need to ensure you get your client's current computer count for the quote for the following question.

Terms:

We use Net 30 terms for any invoices unless otherwise agreed upon prior to receiving a purchase order.

Reseller Discounts:

We can provide a reseller discount between 3-5% depending on purchase amounts.

Due to our highly competitive base pricing, we can't offer a higher reseller discount.

Are Discounts Available for Education, Non-Profit, and Large Volume?

Education Discounts

We offer a standard 10% discount for education customers. Please let us know in the comments on the quote request form if you are in education.

Non-Profit

We offer a standard 10% discount for non-profit organizations. Please let us know in the comments on the quote request form if your organization is non-profit.

Volume Discounts

We can offer volume discounts for larger environments. Volume discounts generally start around the 5,000 devices.

Can I Exclude Devices I Won't Deploy Third-Party Updates to from My License Count?

Yes, we always try to keep things simple for our customers and avoid nickel and diming them! If you have a scenario, where you know you won't deploy third-party updates to specific devices, they can be excluded from your license count!

We ask that you try to calculate your active client count that will receive our third-party updates to the best of your ability. A few examples could be:

Excluding servers, if they will never be in a collection, where third-party updates are targetted.
Mission critical devices that you can't receive third-party updates.

Can I Use the Same Catalog Subscription in Multiple Environments?

You can use the same catalog subscription in multiple environments as long as the client count for all locations where factored into the initial purchase.

For example, you could use the same catalog subscription in Development, Quality Assurance, Production environments.

Can I Exceed the Purchased Client Count Within a Subscription Year?

We try to reduce friction for our customers wherever possible. We allow up to 25% client growth within a subscription year from the initially purchased device count. We determined 25% growth will cover normal device fluctuations within one year period.

If you are in a scenario where the growth has exceeded 25%, please use our contact form to determine if a true-up for the current subscription year would be required.

How are Notifications Sent Out for Subscription Renewal Reminders?

We will send notifications out to the primary contact(s) on the subscription at the following intervals:

60 Days Before Expiration - This will be the first notification email letting you know the expiration date and how to start the renewal process.
30 Days Before Expiration - This will be the second notification email letting you know the subscription will be expiring in one month.
15 Days Before Expiration - This will be the final notification email letting you know that you will lose access to our catalog subscription if no action is taken in the weeks two week for renewal.

If you aren't sure the contacts associated with your account or need to add additional employees for the renewal notifications, please use our Contact Us Form.

Installation, Setup, Trials, and Support

What are the Support Options, Hours and Cost?

Our standard support hours are from 6 AM - 10 PM (EST / UTC -5) Monday - Friday, it's included in your catalog subscription cost. If you have a critical issue outside of standard hours, you can call the number below and choose the option to be transferred to the on-call engineer 24/7.

There are a few ways you can contact support. Please choose the option that works best for you below.

Email Us: https://patchmypc.com/technical-support
Forum Post: https://patchmypc.com/forum
Live Chat: https://patchmypc.com/technical-support
Call Us: +1-866-343-3083

We're a small team, but it benefits our support quality. Our support engineers are also software engineers that write our code and have an in-depth knowledge of WSUS and SCCM software update components. You won't be transferred to multiple times to get the answers you need. - Justin Chalfant, Founder

Please don't take our word for it. Check out some of the feedback the community has about our support and product 👇

Where Can I Find Documentation for Setting up the Third-Party Software Update Catalog?

Step-by-step guide for setting up the catalog using our publishing service - https://patchmypc.com/publishing-service-setup-documentation

Step-by-step guide for setting up the catalog using SCCM 1806+ in-console publishing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBdmWbf5Vgg

Step-by-step guide for setting up the catalog using Microsoft SCUP - https://patchmypc.com/scup-setup-documentation

Is There a Trial Catalog Available for Proof of Concept?

Yes, we have a trial catalog available for proof of concept Patch My PC Third-Party Catalog Trial.

Can I Use the Third-Party Software Update Catalog with Standalone WSUS without SCCM?

Yes, our publishing service has the capability in the advanced tab to make third-party software updates visible directly in the WSUS console so you can deploy third-party software updates without requiring Microsoft SCCM.

Is Mac OS Supported for Software Update Installation?

Our software updates are supported on Windows operating systems only. We make use of the existing SCCM and Windows update agents, so no extra client agents or scanning is required.

Collecting Log Files for Support?

Please send logs using a compressed ZIP file to reduce the size over email.

Logs Files For Publishing Third-Party Updates (Server)

When using the Patch My PC Publishing Service, publishing details will be saved in the PatchMyPC.log located in the <InstallDir> of the service. In the general tab, you can also click Open PatchMyPC.log.
When using the SCCM In-Console Publishing Feature, publishing details will be saved in the SMS_ISVUPDATES_SYNCAGENT.log located on the top-level software update point in the site system logs folder.

Logs Files for Troubleshooting Update Installations (Client)

When troubleshooting update installation errors, we will need multiple SCCM client logs files. Please include the following logs for the %WinDir%\CCM\Logs directory.
- ScanAgent.log
- UpdatesDeployment.log
- WUAHandler.log
- C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log

Logs Files for Troubleshooting Updates Downloading to an SCCM Deployment Package

When troubleshooting update download errors, we will need the patchdownloader.log.
- If updates are failing to download using an automatic deployment rule the patchdownloader.log will be either in the site server or site system log location. In the example SCCM is installed in D:\SCCM the logs would be in one of the following locations
  - D:\SMS_CCM\Logs\PatchDownloader.log
  - D:\SCCM\Logs\PatchDownloader.log
- If updates are failing to download to a deployment package when manually attempting the download in the SCCM console, the patchdownloader.log will be in the current users %temp% directory. Here are a few examples:
  - %temp%\PatchDownloader.log
  - C:\Users\Justin\AppData\Local\Temp\PatchDownloader.log
  - Note: if you are using RDP the patchdownloader.log may be in a random folder name in the temp directory use %temp% to get to the RDP redirected temporary directory for your profile.

General Catalog

What is the Turnaround Time for Third-Party Software Updates to be Added to the Catalog?

Generally, we can detect, validate, and release new updates on the same day the vendor's release the update.

Updates released later in the afternoon (EST), are generally not published in our catalog until the following business day.

Does Patch My PC Have Any Competitor Comparison Details?

We don’t maintain competitor comparisons. From an engineering, support, and feature perspective, we think it’s a bad idea to compare and build features based on competitors. Our thoughts are time spent trying to analyze and develop features found in competitor products, would make us less innovative and may not translate to customer value. - Justin Chalfant, Founder
When we are building new features in our product, it’s always based directly on the feedback we are getting from our customers. For example, all of the custom options available for updates such as disabling self-updates, custom pre/post scripts, standard logging options, closing apps, custom command lines, and removing desktop shortcuts came from customer request!
With regards to our supported products, we are only adding new products based directly on what our customers and potential customers are requesting. Over 80% of the supported products in our catalog today were from customer request. If you see a product that a competitor offers that would provide you value, please just let us know and we will get it added!
We understand it may help from a decision perspective to know how one product stands out. We have a recorded live webinar showing the simplicity of our setup and deployment. If needed, we can set up a live demo with your team to answer any questions.
Of course, we think the best way to understand if our solution would fit your needs is to take it for a spin! You can download our free trial, no sign-up forms required! Install it, choose some products, set a sync schedule, and see how easy keeping third-party applications patched can be!
Although we don't provide any competitor comparisons, we have been keeping track of some community feedback! We think community feedback has more merit than any direct comparison we could offer, check it out below. 👇

Can I Request A New Product Be Added to the Third-Party Software Update Catalog?

Absolutely! We are always love adding new products that would provide value to our customer base!

We have approved the majority of requested products. The criteria for approval is the product's installer/updater has the necessary detection logic, supports a silent installation, installs under SYSTEM context, and has a publicly available download URL for the update binary.

A list of products requested and approved products are available on our application request page. You can request a new application on our application request page.

Are Driver Updates for Dell, HP, and Lenovo Supported?

We have no plans to create updates for drivers for Dell, HP, or Lenovo because each of these vendors already provides a free catalog for their drivers.

For Dell and HP, you can subscribe and publish the catalog directly in the SCCM 1806+ console under the Third-Party Software Update Catalogs node.

For Lenovo, add their catalog URL https://download.lenovo.com/luc/v2/LenovoUpdatesCatalog2v2.cab as a custom catalog in the SCCM 1806+ console.

You can find more details about Lenovo's catalog on their forum post here.

We also have a step-by-step video guide covering how to use the in-console publishing feature in SCCM 1806+, or you can review the Microsoft Docs.

How Are Updates in the Catalog Tested for Installation Success?

We test update logic (Installable and Installed) against multiple operating system and architectures. We ensure all updates are detected and installed correctly in two separate test labs. Our labs contain the following OS platforms:

Windows XP (x86) - No longer tested as of 01/01/2018
Windows 7 SP1 (x86)
Windows 7 SP1 (x64)
Windows 8.1 (x86)
Windows 8.1 (x64)
Windows 10 (x86)
Windows 10 (x64)
Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64)
Windows Server 2012 R2 (x64)
Windows Server 2016 R2 (x64)

What Are Metadata-Only Updates and How to Download and Deploy Metadata-Only Updates?

When you subscribe to a custom third-party software update catalog using the SCCM 1806+ third-party software update catalogs feature, updates are published as metadata-only during the catalog synchronization until you manually choose to publish the update content.

You can determine if updates are metadata-only from the All Software Updates node if the updates are displayed with a blue icon.

Updates published as metadata-only can't be deployed until they a re-published with full-content. If you attempt to download a metadata-only update into a deployment package, you will receive the error "All software updates in this selection are expired or meta-data only, and cannot be downloaded."

In order to download and deploy third-party updates in a metadata-only state, you will need to right-click the update(s) and choose to "Publish Third-Party Software Update Content".

You can review the full-content publishing progress in the SMS_ISVUPDATES_SYNCAGENT.log. The log is located on the top-level software update point in the site system Logs folder.

Once the publishing of third-party update content is complete, you can sync your software update point for SCCM to pick up the change from metadata-only to full-content faster.

Once the software update point sync is complete, the third-party updates should show in a normal state with a green icon meaning they are available for software update deployment.

When using the third-party software updates catalogs feature directly in the SCCM 1806+ console, there is currently no way to automate the publishing of content for third-party updates.

The third-party update integration in the SCCM console feature is pretty new, and we are working with the Configuration Manager product group to make this feature more automated. We recommend voting on this user voice item Automatically Publish Full Content for Third Party Software Updates.

If you would like to avoid this manual step, you can use our publishing service for full automation and additional features as compared to the SCCM 1806+ third-party software update catalogs feature. Please see the comparison below.

What's the Difference our Publishing Service and SCCM 1806+ In-Console Publishing?

When, Why, and How to Republish Update(s)

There are a few scenario's where you may need to use the Republish update(s) right-click option in our publishing service on product(s).

Here's a few scenario's when republishing an update would be required:

If you add a custom pre/post script to a product, republishing is required since this change requires a binary to be added to the previously published update.
If you add any custom right-click actions on a product after an update was published with full-content and if there were no other custom right-click actions enabled previously. This scenario requires us to include our PatchMyPC-ScriptRunner.exe and requires a binary change to the previously published update.
If a published update was deleted from the WSUSContent folder, this scenario will cause the download of the software update into an SCCM deployment package to fail with error 404 (Not Found). Republishing the update should put the new update content in the WSUSContent folder and SCCM will be able to download the new republished update into a deployment package.
The WSUS Signing Certificate has been updated and you want to republish previously published updates with the new certificate.

How to Republish updates:

Once you determine what product(s) meet the criteria for requiring a republish operation you can click the product, vendor, or all products level and choose the Republish update(s) item.

You will be prompted whether you want to supersede the currently published updates for this product when the new updates are republished.

The republishing of the selected updates will occur during the next publishing service sync. You can trigger this sync to happen right away by clicking the Run Publishing Service Sync in the Sync Schedule tab.

If you review the PatchMyPC.log you should see the updates being republished. Republished updates will have the date appended to the update title here's an example: Chrome 73.0.3683.86 (x64) - (March 27, 2019)

Once the republishing has completed, the updates will show up in SCCM after the next software update point sync has occurred. You can force a sync to happen by clicking Sync Now

You can monitor the SCCM software update point sync by reviewing the wsyncmgr.log. Once the sync is complete, you should see the newly republished update(s) in the console with the date appended. If you choose to supersede previously published updates for this product, you will see the previous update(s) as superseded.

How do I Remove Published Updates from WSUS and SCCM?

If you ever need to remove published updates from WSUS and SCCM, this operation can be performed using our publishing service.

Determine what specific update(s) you want to expire/remove. In this example, we will remove the following 7-Zip updates.

Next, within the publishing service go to the "Advanced" tab then click the "Modify Published Updates" wizard.

Select the updates you would like to remove from WSUS/SCCM and click the "Decline Selected Updates".

Note: we don't recommend using the "Delete Selected Updates" option unless you are on a call with a support engineer and instructed to do so.

If you want to remove all "Patch My PC" updates or other third-party vendors, you can use the filter by vendor option and select all and decline.

After the updates are declined in the publishing service, you can manually sync your software update point in SCCM for the changes to occur immediately.

After the software update point sync is complete, you should see the declined updates show as expired in SCCM and will no longer be deployed.

Expired updates will automatically be purged from the SCCM database after 7 days.

Note: if you don't want any future updates to be published for a product, un-check the product in the publishing service, so any future updates aren't published.

Do I Need to Manually Download and Import the Catalog Each Time It's Updated?

The Basic Catalog subscription would only support manual importing and publishing updates within our catalog using Microsoft System Center Updates Publisher.

The Enterprise Catalog subscription would support total automation for importing and publishing updates within the catalog using our publishing service or the SCCM 1806+ third-party software update catalogs feature.

Security

How are Update Binaries in our Catalog Tested for Malware?

For a detailed process of our malware testing, please review https://patchmypc.com/deep-dive-into-security-validation-of-third-party-software-updates-in-microsoft-sccm

We upload all vendor installers (.EXE, .MSI, .MSP Files) to VirusTotal to ensure installers for third-party products are free of malware. VirusTotal scans each installer though over 70 different anti-virus engines.

All VirusTotal scans for update files in our catalog can be found here: https://patchmypc.com/scupcatalog/virustotalscans

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