Deliver cumulative patch sets i.o. hotfixes

[acoosemans]

The CPS (Cumulative Patch Sets) approach used in Windchill is preferred over HotFixes used in Integrity for two reasons:

1. To make sure that all patches are installed. Patches are not supposed to break anything, so they could be installed at any time without too much validation testing by PTC customers.
2. To make the installation of new clients easier.

The current approach is especially annoying when doing an upgrade or when doing clean installs on new client machines because the user has to restart his client for every hotfix. This gives a very unprofessional impression. The desired approach is to have a method to include the hotfixes in the client installers, or alternatively have one single CPS instead of a collection of hotfixes. Given that CPS is a common approach in patch delivery, I assume that PTC would prefer that.

This is in correspondence with the legacy article https://support.ptc.com/appserver/cs/view/solution.jsp?n=CS90879

[aseifert]

Solved in 11.1

[khoppe]

Then it would make sense to change this idea's state ?

[acoosemans]

Hi,

I appreciate the new way of working. It's definitely a step in the right direction. However, I wouldn't call it CPS yet. The last hotfix includes every earlier hotfix, which makes it cumulative indeed, but the behavior is still that of a hotfix. I expect that a CPS replaces the previous CPS. Now, there are still several hotfixes in parallel.

This is leads to following annoyances:

• When deploying a new hotfix, all old hotfixes are still installed too. That means that a new user, or a user with a new machine, has to download all hotfixes instead of the latest only. That is still the same tedious process as before since this one by one.
• When a user has logged in on another (development) server with a different set of hotfixes, he ends up with a different set of hotfixes on his client. When he connects to the default server, the server log contains warnings: "User xxx has installed the following hotfixes which are not on the server". This is of course not a relevant warning. An admin wishes to see warnings and react accordingly. But this is a false positive.

So, to really achieve the desired end result, a CPS installation should replace earlier installations.

[KartikOak]

Hi,

      Over the last few years, the hotfix model as was present with the WIndchill RV&S product line is not relevant anymore unless it is really an Enterprise Down situation. The new model only provides CPS.

Thanks

Kartik

[acoosemans]

Hi Kartik,

Did you read my comment of 2019?

Every CPS is installed on top of the earlier ones, it doesn't replace them. Hence when a user has a new laptop, he still needs to install all patch sets and restart the client. That is not how a cumulative patch set is expected to work. A CPS should replace all other patches, and only the latest is required. Ideally, the client installation includes available patches. It is accepted (but not preferred) to have one additional patching round after the client installation, but not a separate installation of all patches.