Applicabilty and Installed Rules Not Available

Per Patch Packages

"A Windows Installer patch (.msp file) is a file used to deliver updates to Windows Installer applications. The patch is a self-contained package that contains all the information required to update the application."

This basically means all the rules are "baked" into that package already. If you take a look at the Adobe Systems, Inc. Packages in the third party catalog you can see a few examples of msp package rulesets.

That's what I tought but the msp keep trying to install even if the software on the target computer is up to date so I started to doupt that my assumption was right. Maybe it is the msp itself that does'nt validate correctly the version of current installation. I'll ask to technical support of this software.

Thanks for your help David

Might I ask what exact package you are deploying?

It is a patch for Antidote HD. It is french correction software we are using. The patch is avalable here.

http://www.druide.com/telecharger/Win/antidote_hd/Maj_AntidoteHD_v6.1.msp

I did a little more research into using msp files. Unfortunately it looks like it isn’t really possible to directly modify them. Here’s a couple of options you have to remedy this situation.

1. 1) You could create a new msp that has the correct built in guids to allow the patch to know if it’s needed or already installed on a target machine. Here’s a Microsoft kb on how to get started with that process. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa368060
2. 2) You could utilize EminentWare groups to target the deployment to the machines that need the patch, and move them to another group post update to keep track of which machines have already received this update.