Installation Schedule
As part of the deployment process, you must configure when approved patches are installed—manually or based on a schedule.
Manual Installation
You deploy patches directly from the Dashboard using the device's Install Patches option.
Scheduled Installation
You choose the Scheduled Time for installations using the Repeat drop-down menu to select either:
- Daily/Weekly — Choose one or more days of the week to install patches
- Monthly — Select the day of the month to run the installation on. For example the Second Tuesday or Last Friday
The Scheduled Time selected under Installation Schedule refers to the local time of the computer the Agent is installed on.
Please take this into consideration where your Dashboard contains Clients, Sites or Devices in different timezones, to ensure Patches are not installed at an inappropriate time.
One suggestion is to set a custom Installation Schedule at the Client, Site or Device level based on their timezone.
Reboot After Installation
By default, patches are deployed with reboots suppressed to minimize the potential disruption of a device rebooting during office house as part of the patch installation process.
To control this behavior, you can precisely configure how reboots are handled after patch installation with the following options:
| Never | The device will not reboot, regardless of patch requirements |
| When Required | The device will only reboot when it is required to successfully deploy the patch |
| Always | Reboots after the patches are installed, whether required or not |
If you select Never, a restart may be initiated from the Dashboard via the Reboot Now or Later functionality. Patches that require a restart to complete their installation are indicated in the Reboot column and Summary tab of the computer on the Dashboard.
Previous to PME v1.3.1, when a Patch was reported as Reboot Required - it may have indeed failed. For the fail state to show correctly, the device had to be rebooted, and then the next Patch Scan had to run and update to the N-sight RMM Dashboard.
From PME v1.3.1, the installed state of a Patch is accurately reflected following a Patch Remediation run (scheduled install attempt):
| Patch Install Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Reboot Required | Device requires a reboot to finalize the patch installation |
| Installed | Patch has been installed successfully |
| Failed | Patch installation has failed (regardless of a reboot needed or not) |
If Schedule Missed
There may be instances when the device is offline at the scheduled patch installation time, for example the user forgot to leave their computer switched on or the device was powered down for maintenance.
To support this scenario and ensure computers are fully patched, the Windows Agent supports the option to Run ASAP. Where enabled this initiates the patch installation process as soon as the device comes back online. To apply the Reboot after Installation setting to If Schedule Missed patch installations, tick Include Reboot.
