We are beginning to deploy IE10 in our environment on our 2008 R2 servers. Beginning with IE10, it looks like IBM changed the way they are releasing fixlets for the IE10 deployment. Instead of following the naming convention that was set with IE7,IE8,IE9, they changed it to start with the KB article number.
Also, and this is the biggest complaint I have…why did IBM package the IE10 installer with 5 other patches? In the past it was just the IE installer, but now it’s combined with other patches that aren’t even in TEM.
I’m referencing fixlet 271869505 in Patches for Windows site.
Can someone please explain? And also advise as to how you are handling this. We would normally put IE installer and the needed patches into a baseline.
I think there are prerequisites that IE10 requires in order to install, so I think the devs just combined it all into one patch if you needed any element it would just install it.
Q: Why is the title format for IE10 different from IE 7, IE 8 or IE 9?
A: IBM started supporting Windows non-security Critical Updates and Service Pack since Jan 2013. For all new released non-security patches, the title starts with the relevant KB number, for example: "2785094: Windows 8 and Windows 2012 cumulative update: January 2013 - Windows 8 Gold (KB2785094) ". There is no such title format change for existing non-security content.
IE 10 deployment belongs to non-security category and it is provided based on customer request.
Q: Why are there 5 other patches included in the IE 10 fixlet?
A: There are prerequisites (KB2818833) for IE 10 installation (KB2718695). This part is not clearly stated in Microsoft KB article page. The IE 10 installer will trigger the downloading and installation of the prerequisites (5 patches included in our fixlet) and the IE 10 installation will not complete until all those 5 patches have been installed.
Some of the customers’ environment may not have internet access. In this case, they cannot use IE 10 installer to install IE 10. To cover this scenario, we included those 5 prerequisites patches in the IE10 fixlet.
Q: How could it be deployed in a baseline?
A: As mentioned above, those 5 patches are prerequisites for IE 10 installation. If your target environment has internet connection, you may exclude those prerequisite installation from the action script (see the attached sample action script). If your target environment does not have internet access, you may have to cache all the patches before hand.