System Center Updates Publisher 3.0 has been built on the custom updates framework that was introduced in Systems Management Server 2003 R2. Updates Publisher is a stand-alone tool that enables independent software vendors or line-of-business application developers to import software update catalogs, create and modify software update definitions, export update definitions to catalogs, and publish software updates information to a configured update server. By using Updates Publisher to define software updates and publish them to the update server, administrators can begin detecting and deploying published updates to client and server computers in their organization.

Updates Publisher 4.0 adds support for software updates that have dependencies, such as drivers and update bundles. Catalogs for these updates can be imported, the updates can be exported (but not exported for testing), and published to an update server. Drivers and update bundles cannot be created or modified in Updates Publisher 4.0.

Updates Publisher enables administrators to do the following:

• Import catalogs created by non-Microsoft organizations or created from within the administrator's organization.
  
  
• Create applicability and deployment metadata for software updates.
  
  
• Export software update catalogs so that they can be imported by Updates Publisher at another location, or export a test catalog to verify that the rules for the updates work as expected.
  
  
• Manage software updates information.
  
  

For more information about Updates Publisher, visit the System Center Updates Publisher Web site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83534).

The following links provide information about getting started with Updates Publisher, configuring and using the Updates Publisher, and troubleshooting common issues.

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