Patent ID: 8296756

Claim:
A method for managing the deployment of software patch updates on a plurality of computers in an enterprise computer network during a patch cycle wherein each computer receives and installs periodic software patch updates automatically, comprising the steps of: maintaining an inventory of the computers in a central database that stores a status of each computer for each patch during the patch cycle; filtering the computers into at least one filter group and displaying a list of computers in the filter group along with the status for each patch; verifying and displaying the status of each patch for each computer in the filter group by: (1) determining if each computer is in an operational state; (2) copying an agent module to each operational computer for scanning each operational computer remotely; (3) running a remote scan of each operational computer and comparing each operational computer to the software patch updates downloaded to a server update service system during a patch cycle to determine if each operational computer requires software patch updates; and (4) displaying a visual indication of the status of each patch for each operational computer; performing a controlled software patch update for each non-compliant computer in the filter group by: (1) verifying that each computer is in an operational state; (2) determining if a patch processor module is installed on each computer; (3) creating a task in a task scheduler program to run the patch processor module using a patch processor configuration file; (4) monitoring a log file for each computer for the status of each software patch update on each computer; and (5) displaying a message when the software patch update process completes; and performing a controlled reboot of each computer in the filter group following the completion of the software patch updates for the patch cycle.