Updating ProLiants Firmware and Software

April 13, 2010 by Chris · Leave a Comment 

A few months ago I wrote about “The Easy Way to Update ProLiant Firmware” as I had just discovered HP‘s all-in-one firmware updater CD. Great stuff and if you haven’t found that yet, be sure to check that article.

There’s a wrinkle with that CD though: It isn’t always the most current. In fact, it appears to get updated about once every 6 months. I noticed this yesterday as I was resurrecting an older machine to put it back into service. The firmware versions I got were all a bit down-level from what’s on the HP site.

There is a very easy resolution for this on a Windows machine though. Just boot up Windows (needs to have internet connection) and pop in the HP updater CD. Start the Firmware updater (HP Smart Update Manager) and when prompted for update locations, be sure to check the box for ftp.hp.com:

At the bottom of that screen you can also choose between Firmware updates, software updates or both. If you take both (I believe it is the default) it will also look for updates for all the HP software on the machine. Slick!

For the server I was working on yesterday it found updated firmware for every item that I had already flashed from the CD — that gives you an idea of how often HP releases updates.

I might make running this on all my HP servers a quarterly event just to keep ‘em current.

Possibly Related posts:

  1. The Easy Way to Update ProLiant Firmware
  2. Secunia Software Inspector
  3. Windows 7: Update Install Deja Vu
  4. Software Hunt!
  5. More Fun with Microsoft Update: 0x80072EE2

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