Recently Lenovo has released a catalog containing a number of drivers, BIOS upgrades and other downloads for their ThinkPad and ThinkCenter lines. This has been announced in this thread: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Enterprise-Client-Management/Third-Party-Software-Update-Catalog-in-SCCM-1806-and-Lenovo/td-p/4212821
The catalog allows Configuration Manager Administrators to import Lenovo updates either directly into Configuration Manager using the Third Party node or using System Center Updates Publisher (see https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/configurationmgr/2018/03/26/new-release-for-system-center-updates-publisher/)
It is my opinion that using SCUP is the better choice. Because
1. You decide which updates to publish with metadata. This reduces the bloat. Also some vendors do not supersede updates leaving old updates in the system.
2. You have the option of examining the updates from the catalog
3. You can manipulate the updates prior to deploying them. I often change HP BIOS updates to include BIOS passwords.
The downside is that you need an additional tool and need to perform the syncs manually.
Lenovo has done some good things with their catalog:
1. Using the new V2 catalog format that allows for much faster import where only changes are imported
2. Adding information about security identifies for software updates. Unfortunately Configuration Manager does not preserve this. But it would be a huge benefit if all catalogs contained CVE information.
3. Superseded updates. Lenovo has done a good job here. But this naturally means that there is a number of old updates in the catalog.
But the catalog is currently lacking quite a bit:
It is updated from time-to-time and currently (early May 2019 it has been a month since the last update). In my opinion it should be updated more often.
Coverage. It is hit or miss if a given update can be found in the catalog. I found the most recent BIOS upgrade for ThinkPad X260 and deployed it with big success. However BIOS upgrades for X270 was quite old.
I hope Lenovo puts some real effort into expanding the coverage of models and prioritize updates with security ratings.
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