Software Superesed

[Kristopher Rowe]

Hello,

I am trying to find out some information about how the association of supersedes works.  I see there is a parent and child association, but I cannot find out when a parent vs. a child should be used.  Any information would be helpful.  

What brought this up, we have a piece of software, Cisco Umbrella, being deployed by a policy.  Everything was working great until the software auto-updated to the newest version.  Because of the policy, the newer version was being uninstalled, and the older version was being reinstalled.  Under the supersede settings in the policy, both of the checkboxes for Automatically upgrade software and Do not install if a newer version, are grayed out.  I have added the new newer version of Umbrella to the software library and started looking at the associations.  In the newer software, I have added a parent superesed for the old software, this ungrayed out the Do not install if a newer version is installed.  But no, the Automatically upgrade.  Then I removed the parent superese and added a child superese for the old software. This grayed out the Do not install if a newer version is installed and ungrayed automatically upgrade software. 

I then created a test policy for the new version of the software and found with the child superese  I get a warning message saying This software resource has been suppressed by. 

Any help would be appreciated. 

Kris

[Arthur Prosso]

Hi Kris!

I totally agree that it might be confusing.

Here is the rule of thumb:
The Parent association "Supersedes" should be added for a NEWER software version being edited - add older versions to the list
The Child  association "Supersedes" should be added for an  OLDER software version being edited - add newer versions to the list

In the following example we have Foxit 3.3 and Foxit 4.0 software (imported into the software catalogue in advance):
1) Open Foxit 4.0 for edit 
2) Add Foxit 3.3 by choosing Parent supersedes association (parent means that THE COMPONENT BEING EDITED IS PARENT) 
As a result we see 

If we create a policy for Foxit 4.0 then it will have "Automatically upgrade ..." option selectable.  If the option is selected and Foxit 3.3 is installed on client then it will be uninstalled explicitly before installing Foxit 4.0 

If the option is NOT checked the policy will NOT try to explicitly uninstall the older version. Dependent on the MSI/installation scripts of the newer software the old version may disappear anyway, but in some cases it may remain and the new one will be installed side by side



If we create a policy for an OLDER Foxit 3.3 it will have "do not install..." checkbox meaning that if Foxit 4.0 is installed on client Foxit 3.3 will NOT be installed


Hope this helps
Artur

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Software Engineer 5
Broadcom Inc.
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[Kristopher Rowe]

Thank you so much Artur!!! Your explanation really helped, thanks for clearing up supersedes.

Kris

[Arthur Prosso]

You are welcome!
Just a side note - superseding associations are transitive.
I. e X supersedes Y supersedes Z  means X supersedes Z. One does not need to explicitly add X supersedes Z  for the purpose of "Install X" policy creation. 

• When "Install X" policy executes on client with  option ""Automatically upgrade ..." checked, then it will uninstall  BOTH Y and Z if these are installed

• if "Install Z" policy is run with an option "do not install..." checked , then Z will not be installed if either Y or X are installed.

It will not be obvious from the policy UI though :(
Regards
Artur


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Software Engineer 5
Broadcom Inc.
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