Navigating the ITRC Patch Page

[George_145]

I was working with a customer yesterday on a problem they were having navigating the ITRC patch page. Kits weren't getting added to the shopping cart and selections were getting lost as they moved around the search results pages. The problem was they were using the browsers Back button. You don't want to do that when lookng for patches.

On this page, if you look just under the grey header you see "IT resource center forums | OpenVMS" . The patch pages have similar selections. You want to use those for navigation. If you do, your kit selections will be saved as you move from page to page and between search results. It makes using the interface a lot simpler.

[Mike Naime]

What I have noticed is that if I want a selection on this page, I need to get it then. If I procede to the next page, all of my selections from the previous page are lost.

Example. Select all of the VMS 731 patches to browse. Choose the PCSI patch on page 1. procede to page 2 using the button at the bottom of the page. Choose the update patch on page 2. Go to checkout/download Only the Update patch shows up.

You really need to have them do patches by chronological order. Or be able to search by date. I.E. I know that I last downloaded patches on november 1st. so I want to see anything newer than October 31st.

[Bradford Hamilton_1]

Another way to access the patches (which addresses Mike's concern), is to use FTP. FTP will list the date of the patch, and there are no fancy buttons or shopping carts to deal with :-).

[Willem Grooters]

A lot of customer's seem unhappy with this change. Yet anoher reason to complain about: it'strue and teher is NO warning. Just select the max (100, will fit for 7.3-1) and from that, _guess_ the ones you need and download them. One by one since ZIP seems to break down after some time (as I found several times).
Why that: you have to select them first before you can read the releasenotes.

Alas, HP's Patch delivery seems reluctant to listen to their users.

[George_145]

For Mike:
>>What I have noticed is that if I want a selection on this page, I need to get it then. If I procede to the next page, all of my selections from the previous page are lost.<<

When you make a seletion(s)on a page, before you go to the next page you need to add them to the download list via the "add to selected patch list" at the bottom of the page you are on. If you do not do this and try to move to the next page you will get the following message:

"Select OK to clear your selected patches and proceed to the desired page. Select CANCEL if you wish to return to the current page and add your selected patches to the download list." OK/CANCEL

If you are chosing "OK", that's why you are losing selections.

For William:
>>A lot of customer's seem unhappy with this change. Yet anoher reason to complain about: it'strue and teher is NO warning.<<

I'm not sure what this is referring to. Where do we need a warning?

>>Just select the max (100, will fit for 7.3-1) and from that, _guess_ the ones you need and download them. One by one since ZIP seems to break down after some time(as I found several times).<<

Can you give me more information about ZIP breaking down?

>>Why that: you have to select them first before you can read the release notes.<<

If you mean that you have to add a patch to the selected download list before you can read the reelase notes, that is not true. Clicking on the title of the patch in the search results will bring up the release notes. I don't know any other way of displaying the release notes until someone chooses which one they want to look at!

>>Alas, HP's Patch delivery seems reluctant to listen to their users.<<

Not at all. Being from VMS and having to work with other merger groups in the past, I can honestly say that this is one area where HP is really trying to listen to and correct problems that VMS users raise. I know that not having the release dates in the search results is a complete pain. That will be fixed in the next release of the ITRC interface as well some other problems that users have been complaining about. That release will be done in the early part of next year. It looks like early February is the target timeframe.

Later today you should be able to access a text file called something like Alpha_V731_Master_OS_ECO_List.Txt. Similarly titled lists will be displayed for the other fully supported OS versions. i can't guarantee that they will all go up today. Note that the list will include the OS patches, not LPs. Because of the varied LP processes it is not feasible to include them. The list will include all current ECOs and the release dates. Hopefully that will help ease the pain until the date functionality is released for the interface.

[Willem Grooters]

Well, I might be a bit rough in my comments but from the announcement on there have been requests for improvement. Glad to read you ARE bsuy improving it. I'll wait ;-)
As on the ZIPped download: I tried it once but it constantly failed for some reaseon - I cannot recall what it was - something internal. I'll retry soon.
As on Mike's question: this _should_ be improved. IMHO it doesn't make sense to loose your curent selection if you have to add more patches - from another page. That's why I suggested to show 100 on a page (last time I checked there were 61 fror 7.3-1).
Now you are obliged to download your selection first befoere continueing. I think a waste of time.
On the list: "Note that the list will include the OS patches, not LPs."
Does this mean that e.g. TCPIP will NOT be mentioned there? If not, you're missing important information! I do understand that patches on compilers, side-products etc are not in that list, but certainly TCPIP, DecWindows, DECNet - all these things that directaly relate to VMS in it's bare functionalitry - are VERY important and IMO should be considered part of the OS. If these are included, it will definitely help to brigde the time to the new (and hopefully more useful) interface of ITRC.